What: Akanksha Foundation, an NGO that runs non-formal educational programmes for less privileged children of Mumbai and Pune, invites volunteers. 

About the organisation
The project brings children who live in slums in contact with the volunteers in an environment in which they learn and have fun together.

Akanksha means hope, hope for the children who learn skills here that will enable them to have a better life, and hope for the volunteers who learn that by caring and teaching they can make a positive difference to the society in which they live.

Our educational centers run from Monday-Friday for 2.5 hours and they are either in the morning or in the afternoon.

In Mumbai our centres are in VT, Colaba, Mahalaxmi, Lower Parel, Worli, Bandra and Mankhurd.

Our Akanksha centre is a class of 45-60 children, two teachers and a volunteers and our focus area is more on English, mathematics, self-esteem and general awareness.

Requirements
~ We need a volunteer to give us a year-long commitment and come to our centre once a week for 2.5 hours.
~ As a volunteer you will be assisting teachers at the centre in teaching and conducting a class.
~ You could sit with a group of students and help them cope with the curriculum.
~ You can help the teacher in making materials and aids.
~ If volunteers cannot give us a commitment for a year then they would be required to go to the centre more than once a week depending on their duration of commitment
~ During the weekends we have an Art programme where you as a volunteer can help the teacher with the Art classes.
~ Art is a 2-year programme that is compulsory for all 10 to 12 year olds and runs only on the weekends, we have a curriculum and a set of teachers who implement it.
~ We have art classes in Bandra, Colaba and Mahalaxmi
~ Other than the art programme we have the mentoring programme, where one adult is associated with a child and he/ she has to be a friend and a guide to that particular child through professional and personal decisions. The mentor group meets for about two hours every weekend and they have a group activity focused around personal development and then moving on working with the individual child. Mentoring however involves very high level of commitment and we expect the mentors to be a part of the child life at least for over a year.

Registration details
~ To register you may visit our office on Wednesday or Friday at 3 pm. The address is available on our website www.akanksha.org.

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