Manthan — An Experiential Learning Journey
We are a country of a billion plus people. At least 10 million Gandhi(s) are needed to solve the problems faced by the billion of us.
Designing educational experience at NavGurukul has to go through one very important check. We don’t take any decision for a poor student amongst a country full of such students. The check is simple — if it were our own children how would we proceed with the question while being cognizant of the financial and resource constraints.
Education for us isn’t just equipping the student with the hard skills like Software Engineering, but also exposing them to experiences that facilitate a strong connection between themselves and the community. Alignment with one’s own self is critical for achieving harmony with one’s environment. Before joining NavGurukul, our team was learning from various workshops and people who helped us shape our own understanding. While I attended Swadharma programme in Auroville, Abhishek attended various workshops at Sambhaavnaa (Palampur) and SECMOL, Rishabh designed his own learning experience after dropping out from his school after Xth class — among other things. Such experiences help to nurture an understanding of our own selves and be more aware.
There are various such opportunities to learn within the campus, during the year itself. However, we realized that we can never cover the diversified range of experiences with high intensity and depth that the ecosystem around has to offer to effectively help the students. To ensure that the students can learn from such a vibrant ecosystem, we launched a program called Manthan. Under Manthan, we have partnered with organizations who provide a range of experiences and also ensure a dialogue with the students on the questions persistent in them.
Some of the past opportunities include
- two students taught in a monastery in Bodhgaya
- seven students worked in Bastar on eco-construction of domes
- 25+ students attended 10 days Vipassana camps
- two students attended a Krishnamurthy Dialogue in Sahaydri School
- two students attended Pravah’s workshop on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
- two students working with Talam, Auroville Foundation
- two students in Vanvaadi, Maharashtra
- two students in Udaipur Jail to teach digital literacy to the inmates
- two students working with Ahimsa Gram, Jaipur
- two students to begin volunteering at Puvidham, Tamil Nadu
We are continuing partnerships with the existing organizations and joining new partnerships with many such organizations based on the organizations’ and students’ response.
The idea here is to provide a strong and personalized exposure to the student while adding value to the organization via the labor and skills provided by the student. Host organization takes care of the accommodation, food, etc. while NavGurukul takes care of the travel-related expenses. Students enjoy the fresh learning experience and a totally new perspective to look at things while working hard on the challenges introduced by the host organization.
Manthan is a unique program which is a win-win to everyone while there is minimal use of money in the process. Manthan not only puts the student on a journey to explore more and get deeply connected to her own roots but also prepare the student better to respond to the unique challenges that are posed by workplaces today.
Would love to have your feedback and introductions with prospective partners.
You can write to anu@navgurukul.org for more information. :)
