happy horizons trust annual report 2016-2017

ANNUAL REPORT 2016-2017

HAPPY HORIZONS TRUST

© HAPPY HORIZONS TRUSTRegistered under the India Trust Act, 1882Regn No. : BK IV BNG-BMH 739 2012-2013

REGISTERED OFFICE#305 Vasavi Pearl Apts, Celebrity Classic Layout,Doddathoguru Village, Electronic City,Bangalore, Karnataka, India 560100

DELHI OFFICEG154, 1st Floor, Kalkaji, Delhi, India 110019

BIHAR OFFICESharma Chowk, Simri Bakhtiarpur,Saharsa 852127, Bihar, India

CONTACT USKshitiz [email protected] : +91 95352 06828

Website: www.happyhorizons.orgEmail: [email protected]: facebook.com/happyhorizonstrust

Deeptanshu [email protected]: +91 83740 12411

To all the happiness we spread...

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THE EDUCATION CRISIS

FROM THE TEAM

Founder’s MessageCore Team MembersVolunteers Champions

OUR CORE BELIEFSEducation for DevelopmentCreating Sysmetic ImpactLocal Changemakers Ecosystem PROJECT UPDATESProject JagritiProject JigyasaDigital Literacy and Internet Awareness Youth Leadership Development ProgramLearning Through Videos Teacher Training and Leadership Development

MAJOR EVENTS3rd Annual Day Celebrations, 2016Annual Meetup @ Delhi & ExcursionTypography Workshop @ New Delhi World Book FairLibrary in a classroom Kit LaunchSocial Entrepreneurs and Entreprises Event participation

Volunteer Meet in DelhiVolunteer Meet in BangaloreVolunteer Testimonials

COLLABORATIONS AND PARTNERS

FINANCES AND AUDITS12A & 80G certificationsFinancial Audits FY 2015-2016 Thank you Donors

WHAT LIES AHEAD

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CONTENTS

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THE EDUCATION CRISIS

The most pressing problem of our times is thelow quality of education.

How do we address it?

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About 50% of children in class 5 cannot read a class 2 paragraph fluently. Inability to write is a major cause of concern too.

Over 60% of children in India suf-fer from malnutrition, resulting in stunted growth and low motor skills. Many students feel left behind.

Rote learning over the years hasreduced the thinking capacity of students. Students are not encouraged to ask questions.

Only 20% of graduates are employable directly, without any external training. Many are clueless about careers even after graduation.

India faces a shortage of nearly 1.4 million trained teachers. Even existing teachers need better training to drive learning.

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“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”

― John Dewey

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FROM THE TEAM

Nothing is possible without a good team.We are glad to see the team grow across our different centers and people take up more responsibility.

We welcome you to be a part of our journey.

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Education is such a vast discipline to work in and it requires the change at a systemic level. Happy Horizons Trust’s, vision is that one day all the schools will offer quality education to the individual, that focuses on the overall development of the child. Our mission is to improve the quality of education in the schools through intervention methods that emphasize on developing soft skills (communication, reading, writing); critical thinking abilities, activity based learning at the primary school level and better teaching methods.

It continues to be an amazing journey for us. Our motto is Education for development and we firmly believe in it. Education does not have any boundary. Getting quality education is a basic right for every indi-vidual but what is delivered in many schools across the country is not quality. Books provide us knowledge but not aware of practicalities of our day to day issues. We have to go beyond being just literate to being educated. At the Happy Horizons Trust, we conduct several engaging and entertaining activities by applying alternative methods which provide knowledge of lifeskills, skills development.

Hailing from Bihar, we have seen poverty from close quarters. We firmly believe that a good quality education can lead a family out of poverty. This has been our driving force over the years. At the Trust, we are trying to improve on the quality of education, help the stu-dents to be mentally strong and trying to bridge the gap between the students and their parents.

The area of our projects, the number of schools, team members and volunteers have increased last year. This motivates us to work more moving into new year. We would be happy to welcome more people who believe in us and in joining our hands for the cause we work on. Thank you all for the support so far.

We have expanded our work more in rural areas and we have a larger team with us now. We are a 4 years old organization now and as we move into the 5th year, we are gathered with more supporting hands, enthusiasm and motivation from the people who believe in the cause that we are working on.

- Vatsala & Kshitiz

FOUNDER’S MESSAGE

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Vatsala President & Head of Operations

Kshitiz AnandManaging Trustee, Strategy

Ruchi AnandEducation, Training & Partnerships

Rakesh RanjanProject Management, CSR Relations

Manish PathakStrategy & Finance

Deeptanshu PandeyMarketing & Communication

Vinay KumarProject Manager, Bihar

Sonu KumarIT Instructor, Bihar

Chandni ModiCoordinator

CORE TEAM MEMBERS

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Abhishek KumarVolunteer CoordinatorBangalore

Puja RajVolunteer CoordinatorDelhi

Ritu RajVolunteer, Delhi

Nidhi Volunteer, Delhi

Pooja PatelVolunteer, Delhi

Shreya Shetty Volunteer, Bangalore

Adi SheshVolunteer, Bangalore

Priyanka KVolunteer, Bangalore

VOLUNTEERS

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Jyoti Nigar Parween Neda Afreen

Mani Bharti Jyoti Julie Kumari

Neha Kumari Farhana Komal Bhagat

Neha Kumari Ladli Kumari Deepika Kumari

CHAMPIONS

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OUR CORE BELIEFS

For our nation to develop, it is important that we develop the rural areas. This can only happen by creating local change at the grassroots levels.

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EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT

The low quality of graduates today is a result of a weak Primary school education. It is difficult to think of building on a weak foundation, for then it is just trying to play catchup and damage control. A lot of efforts need to be put into improving the quality of education in the primary schools. At the same time, we have an immensely energetic youth waiting to get guidance and mentoring to drive change in so-ciety. Our theory of change proposes to guide the youth with a Youth Leadership Development Program. A key part of their responsibility is to strengthen the primary school education system, through careful-ly designed intervention programs that emphasize on activity based learning, storytelling, participatory learning, arts and crafts activity. These are critical inputs to the child’s learning that is often missing in the schools today.

So, we have two clearly identified problems. One is the low quality of education in primary schools and other is the unguided youth. The theory of change started with this very simple question. “How might we create a strong local system by which the youth can contribute back to the society and improve the quality of education?” We can-not further compromise on the quality of education in schools. Till a few years ago, the problem was the enrolment. But now that it has been solved, the biggest problem facing us social entrepreneurs working in education is that of quality. Better educated people would mean better employment and better upbringing of the families.

Our work is unique for it looks at strengthening the local ecosystem, by creating local change makers within the society. These empow-ered youths become role models and serve as inspiration for the oth-ers. For the youth who go through our programs or are associated with our trust, we provide mentoring towards higher education, en-trepreneurship and various other career options. In the short term, this results in a positive impact within the family and in the long term within the society.

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CREATING SYSTEMIC IMPACT

Our mission is to use Design, Technology and Creativity to improve the quality of education in schools in India and bring about a systemic change!

Our larger vision is towards whole school transformations. But inorder to do that, we need to break that down into multiple smaller projects, that work in harmony. We have identified the different components of the system and the role they play.

We spent considerable time in understanding the problem space from the perspective of the different stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, government, development organizations) and how we can engage them to bring out the systemic change.

We are currently working on strengthening the primary school educa-tion through a Youth Leadership Development Program in the form of a 2 to 3 year fellowship. In the long run, post fellowship the em-powered youths are later inculcated back into the system as trained teachers and entrepreneurs.

It is important to work on multiple smaller projects to think of the sys-temic change. The challenge with working with wicked problems is that there is no one problem. The Kosi region of Bihar is flood-prone every year. Once a hotbed for Polio in India, it’s a place for other health challenges like malnutrition and high infant mortality. It has amongst the lowest literacy rates and is home to extremely backward class communities, where early child marriage is a normal thing and women become grandmothers by 40.

Almost every household has someone living outside the state in search of livelihood, for not much opportunities for local employment exists. Add to this that the state has had a history of bad law and or-der due to polity that is driven by caste based politics. When you put these together, you get a social fabric that is immensely complicated to work with. We work in these areas where we firmly believe that a better education is the key to development.

This complex social fabric offers immense challenges to work towards creating any substantial impact. It is time taking and can get really frustrating at times too.

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LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS ECOSYSTEM

There is only one way to bring about change at the grassroots level, and that is to empower the local. The dysfunctional public education system has resulted in the rise of private school education in India, to seek for better quality education for the child. Since a majority of the children go to public schools, there is a substantial number of students who get left out of good quality education. This low quality of graduates is a major problem for it results in a huge number of unemployable graduates.

There are two main problems that we have idenfitied with the local ecosystem. Firstly, a lot of efforts need to be put into improving the quality of education in the primary schools to be able to build a strong foundation. At the same time, we have an immensely energetic youth waiting to get guidance and mentoring to drive change in society.

It is our vision that over the years we can put back into the system more empowered and trained youth who have a genuine interest in teaching and discharge their duty with utmost dignity and think for the larger benefit of the society. Over the years, successfully, we have provided employment to a few local people. We have literally seen the employees groom in their responsibility and that gives us huge confidence.

Our theory of change proposes to guide and train the youth so that they become the key participants in the development of the local ecosystem. At the trust we take this as a responsibility to be able to create more local employment.

Our work is unique for it looks at strengthening the local ecosystem, by creating local change makers within the society. These empowered youths become role models and serve as inspiration for the others. For the youth who go through our programs or are associated with our trust, we provide mentoring towards higher education, entrepre-neurship and various other career options.

In the short term, this results in a positive impact within the family and in the long term within the society.

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PROJECT UPDATES

From consolidating on old projects to launching new ones. The only way to know if an idea will work is to try it out. Thats what keeps us moving.

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Story telling and book reading sessions in Delhi and Bihar

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PROJECT JAGRITI

The word Jagriti (Hindi) means Awakening. The project earlier called the Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me Project, aims to do just this. It allows the students to understand the different aspects of education, resulting in increased motivation amongstthem.

The project uses Activity Based Learning and Alternative Learningmethods to improve the quality of education. The sessions in the schools are conducted by the Champions, who are selected under the Youth Leadership Development Program. They are required to spend 2 hrs a week, one school at a time.

Mapping of the champions is done in way that there is atleast one dedicated volunteer/champion for each school.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES• To motivate children to attend schools.• To make learning fun and engaging• To visit schools across different parts of Bihar & impart education outside the books, related to life skills, creative skills,basic health and career counselling• To improve the quality of education by using alternativelearning methods and creative learning.

PROJECT FOCUSEnhance the child’s motor skills.Inculcate a habit of reading and improve the reading ability.Enhance the child’s speaking and communication skills.Instill self confidence amongst self and peers.Improve writing skills and basic arithmetic.

PROJECT OUTREACH 12 Schools, 4 Blocks , 3 Districts, 3600 Students

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Date Champion's name School's name Conducted Activities

01-Apr-16 Nidhi Shrivastava New Primary School ,Pharpur Storytelling Writing

01-Apr-16 Neha kumari Middle School,Ranginia Storytelling Book Reading

07-Apr-16 Nidhi Shrivastava New Primary School ,Pharpur Book Reading Writing

06-Aug-16 Nigar Middle School,Ranginia Book Reading Art & craft

10-Aug-16 Nigar Middle School,Ranginia Book Reading Writing

11-Aug-16 Jyoti kumari Komal bhagat Middle school ,Shani tola,Sbpur Book Reading

Writing

12-Aug-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Writing

13-Aug-16 Neda Afreen Nigar Kanya Prabha Maktab School Cap Making Workshop

storytelling

13-Aug-16 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktab School storytelling

16-Aug-16Jyoti Shrivastava

Jyoti kumari Komal bhagat

Middle School ,Shani tola,Sbpur Rakhi Making Workshop

23-Aug-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Storytelling

24-Aug-16 Komal bhagat New Primary School,Sbpur Book Reading Storytelling

26-Aug-16 Neha kumari Middle School, Ranginia Book Reading Writing

30-Aug-16 Neha kumari Middle School, Ranginia Book Reading Storytelling

01-Sep-16 Neha kumari Middle School, Ranginia Storytelling Writing

Log of Sessions conducted by champions

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02-Sep-16 Komal bhagat New Primary School,Sbpur Drawing Storytelling

03-Sep-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Drawing Storytelling

04-Sep-16 Nigar Neha kumari Middle School, Ranginia Shortplay

Storytelling

06-Sep-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Storytelling

08-Sep-16 Jyoti kumari Middle school ,Shani tola,Sbpur Book Reading Storytelling

20-Sep-16 Jyoti kumari Middle school ,Shani tola,Sbpur Book Reading Writing

17-Oct-16 Komal bhagat New Primary School,Sbpur Storytelling Writing

19-Oct-16 Jyoti kumari Middle school ,Shani tola,Sbpur Book Reading Writing

28-Oct-16Jyoti Shrivastava

Neda Afreen Farhana

New Primary School,Sbpur Rangoli Storytelling

28-Oct-16Komal bhagat Jyoti kumari Neha kumari

New Primary School,Sbpur Storytelling

02-Nov-16 Nigar Middle School,Chakbharho Book Reading Storytelling

06-Nov-16 Neha kumari Middle School,Ranginia Storytelling Writing

07-Nov-16 Farhana Neda Afreen Kanya Prabha Maktab Scool Sports

07-Nov-16Neha kumari Komal bhagat Jyoti kumari

Kanya Prabha Maktab Scool Sports

11-Nov-16 Nigar Middle School,Chakbharho Art & craft Storytelling


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14-Nov-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Storytelling Writing

29-Nov-16 Neha kumari Middle School,Ranginia Storytelling Writing

07-Dec-16 Neda Afreen Kanya Prabha Maktab School Storytelling Writing

13-Dec-16 Neda Afreen Kanya Prabha Maktab School Book Reading Writing

19-Dec-16 Komal bhagat New Primary School,Sbpur Rangoli Storytelling

24-Dec-16 Jyoti Shrivastava Jyoti kumari Middle School, Raipura,Bhoraha Cap Making Workshop

Storytelling

24-Dec-16

Juli kumari Laddly kumari Neha kumari

Nigar

Middle school, Bhan Thekti,Mathahi

Cap Making Workshop Storytelling

13-Jan-17 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School, Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Writing

15-Jan-17 Neda Afreen Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktab School Book Reading

Writing

18-Jan-17 Neda Afreen Kanya Prabha Maktab School Storytelling Writing

23-Jan-17 Nigar Middle School ,Ranginia Book Reading Storytelling

24-Jan-17 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Storytelling

25-Jan-17 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktab School Book Reading Storytelling

29-Jan-17

Jyoti Shrivastava Neha kumari Jyoti kumari

Nigar

Bihar Office Art & craft Storytelling


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04-Feb-17 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktab School Book Reading Writing

02-Feb Nigar Middle School,Chakbharho Book Reading Writing

10-Feb-17 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Writing

11-Feb-17 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktab School Book Reading Writing

17-Feb-17 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha Book Reading Storytelling

18-Feb-17 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktaab SchoolBook Reading

Writing

01-Mar-17 Neha Middle School ,RaginyaBook Reading

Writing

03-Mar-17 Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School,Raipura,Bhoraha

Word game Writing

Storytelling

04-Mar-17

Puja Raj Pooja Patel

Ritu Raj Azad Park, Delhi Storytelling

04-Mar-17 Jyoti kumari Middle school Julhatoli,SbpurBook Reading

Writing

06-Mar-17 Komal kumari New primary school,Sbpur

Word game Poem

Storytelling

07-Mar-17 Neha kumari Middle school ,Raginya

Book Reading Storytelling

Writing

09-Mar-17 Nigar Middle School,ChakbharhoStorytelling

Book Reading


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10-Mar-17Neha kumari

Laddly kumariUtkramit Madhya

vidhyalay,Bhan tekathi,MathayiStorytelling

Book Reading

10-Mar-17

Juli kumari Jyoti kumari

Komal kumariUtkramit Madhya

Vidhyalay,Bhan tekathi,MathayiStorytelling

Book Reading

10-Mar-17 Jyoti ShrivastavaMiddle School, Raipura,

Bhoraha Storytelling

11-Mar-17 Komla kumari New Primary School,SbpurPainting

Storytelling

11-Mar-17

Jyoti kumari Neha kumari

Jyoti Shrivastava Middle School Julhatoli,SbpurDrawing

Storytelling

15-Mar-17 Neha kumari Middle school ,Raginya Storytelling

16-Mar-17 Nigar Middle School,ChakbharhoBook Reading

Writing

25-Mar-17 Farhana Kanya Prabha Maktaab SchoolStorytelling

Writing

25-Mar-17

Vatsala Ritu Raj

DeeptanshuTilak Bridge, Delhi Storytelling

27-Mar-17 Komal kumari New primary School, SbpurStorytelling Word game

28-Mar-17 Jyoti kumari Middle school Julhatoli, SbpurStorytelling

Book Reading

28-Mar-17 Neha kumari Middle school, RaginyaStorytelling

Writing

29-Mar-17

Juli kumari Neha Kumari

Laddly KumariUtkramit Madhya Vidyalay,

Tekhati MathahiBook reading

Writing


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Champions conducting sessions amongst different students

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Book design workshops at a High School in Bihar as a part of Project Jigyasa

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PROJECT JIGYASA

The word Jigyasa (Hindi) means the curiosity to know things. From this year onwards we expanded the outreach of this project to also focus on enhancing the student’s motor skills. The students have low motor skills due to stunted growth and malnutrition during their first 5 years of upbringing. As a result, there is a possibility of enhanching the creative side of the person as well.

Art and Craft activities are an integral part of this workshops. Every session in this project comprises of sessions on Storytelling, Infor-mation about how to create Illustrations, craftwork and present their work. Students work in teams and therefore pickup aspects of team-work, working in constraints, time management etc.

When the students are required to create a book as a part of this workshop, the students are required to conceptualize a story, think about the characters, illustrate the story and then put it out in the format of a book. When there is a session around a festival planned, the students are told the story behind the festival and then a related activity is conducted. Through this initiative of the Happy Horizons Trust, it also aims to explore the different aspects of arts, crafts and design to the children and bring about a sense of awareness about different career options like Graphic Designing, Writer, Illustrator. The project allows us to bring smiles to children, and have a long lasting impression on the children, for something that they will cherish forever.

PROJECT OUTREACH4 Schools, 15 Sessions, 500+ Students

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Craft sessions in Cap making and Kite Making conducted by the champions

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Craft sessions during festivals, Christmas Cap making and making Holi posters

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Digital Literacy classes at our IT center in Simri Bakhtiarpur, Bihar

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DIGITAL LITERACY & INTERNET AWARENESS

A program to empower the youth with the understanding of technol-ogy and its usages. With ample research to show that children can pick up using technology very quickly, we seek to create a program that enables children and youth to understand technology, its powers and avenues for accessing information, materials for education and ability to do tasks online, and a larger goal of empowering them to bring positive change in the society.

COURSE OUTLINEBasic Fundamentals of ComputersHistory of Computers & Types of NetworkWindows Operating SystemBasics of Word, Excel, PowerpointIntroduction to Internet and BrowsersUnderstanding Search Engines (Google)Netiquettes, Surfing with an understanding of SecurityEmails: From id to message creation & usage with attachmentsAccessing Social sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.)Communication Tools: Chatting, Video Conferencing (Skype)Utilities: Ticket Booking, Payment of billsGovernment sites and RTIOnline ShoppingOnline form submission for examinations and job vacanciesMoney Transfer, Net BankingUse of Internet through Mobile, Internet on Tablet deviceIntroduction to Online Education and MOOCsGoogle Drive

The program is run at a nominal fees to cover the cost forthe running of the center.

PROJECT OUTREACH1 Training center, 5 Systems, 300 Students cetrified so far

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Champions celebrating 4 years of completion of HHT

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YOUTH LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

We at HHT believe that youths especially girls have a great energy and potential to be able to make a difference. All that these youths need is a platform, support, mentoring and guidance. Through our Youth Leadership Development Program we aim to empower the youths in rural and semi-urban areas in India to become local change makers, contributing to the development of society. We call these female youths as Champions because we believe that they are not less than champions. They are the ones who make the process of learning fun and engaging.

Champions, unlike others, don’t just bring the change, but be the change. They get involved in adopting and implementing everything they learn and bring it forth for benefit of others. Gradually these champions turn out to be a leader. However, no one is born cham-pion but they are groomed to become one. That is why we train our champions for a period of 3 years at regular intervals.

The shortlisted students from Girls High School go through a strin-gent 6 step qualifying steps of Reading ability, Writing skills, Extem-pore public speakings, Group discussion, Personal interview and Par-ent’s interview to be selected as Champions.

During their first year of training, we engage them in conducting ac-tivities in primary schools such as Book reading, storytelling, art and craft etc. Gradually, with experience, during 2nd year, champions maintain logs, mentor Junior champions, they are trained at Digital Literacy, they give talk across villages about environment cleanliness, hygiene maintenance and how these petty actions lead a child’s health toward education.

They also discuss about the importance of education and govern-ment schemes with parents so that they feel equally motivated to educate their children. In the final year, our champions organize and manage events of organization, with the digital literacy provided to them, they update about their work and project reporting on Internet. By the end of 3 year training, champions get confident enough to talk in front of people and lead them; they are better skilled in teaching while making it fun and engaging the result of which they are offered as roles of a teacher in the low fee (affordable) private schools.

PROJECT OUTREACH3 districts, 16 Champions so far.

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Film screenings during Learning Through Videos project at various schools

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LEARNING THROUGH VIDEOS

As proponents of alternative learning, we strongly believe in the power of learning through videos and other media. Among different projects of Happy Horizons Trust, Learning through Videos has been the most successful and outreaching project. Videos has a greater impact than printed books. Sight and sound of videos stimulates our sensory motor and captures quick attention. Unlike any other method of learning, Learning through videos keeps maintaining interests of students for longer period of time, rather than getting distracted.

In May 2015, the “Learning through Videos” was started in collabo-ration with Children’s Film Society of India, Mumbai and it was highly successful. During our 4 months session of this project, we outreached to over 25000 students. With the amazing response from the kids and schools, we continued with this project again the following year in different schools of several districts of Bihar. The project this time ran from from October till December 2016, owing to better climate con-ditions. We were able to outreach to 22776 students this time.

We projected the films that are aimed at cultural sensitization, know-ing about different cultures of the world, storytelling and building in students a sense of inquisitiveness towards how to do things. To en-courage more public participation, the screenings were done either in classrooms or at public spaces.

As part of the project this year, 100 screenings of different films were conducted across 6 different districts in Bihar (Saharsa, Madhepura, Supaul, Purnea, Katihar, Khagaria). As a follow up to these screenings we engaged with students in discussions on filmmaking, storytelling and cultures of the world. These discussions have a more lasting im-pact on these young minds, as they are able to connect with it.

PROJECT OUTREACH THIS YEAR24 Schools, 106 Screenings, 6 Districts, 22776 Students

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Training teachers on how to enhance the reading level amongst students

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TEACHER TRAINING & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

To educate is to lead young minds. We need educators who believes in the potential of each child. India has a shortage of around 1.4 mil-lion teachers. Around 6000 schools in India do not have a teacher at all! One of the drawbacks we have observed is the low quality of teaching that exists across schools. The problems could be related to multiple things. From lack of interest to overburden of administrative work to disinterested students. However, it is the imperative of the teacher to ensure that learning happens in the best possible manner.

Our Teacher Training & Leadership Development program is aimed at enhancing the capacity of the teachers in the schools. The pro-gram is delivered through a series of training and workshop working closely with the school management across different schools (both rural and urban) in India. The program gives a better understanding of the social, economic and cultural aspects of education by means of holistic development of teachers while imparting education. The modules are designed to provide a 360 degree training to the teach-ers in schools to enhance their teaching skills and make them better at leadership.

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MAJOR EVENTS

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Snapshots from the Annual Day function on 24th April 2016

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3rd ANNUAL DAY CELEBRATIONS, 2016

As every year on the 24th April, the annual day was celebrated at Simri Bakhtiarpur, Saharsa district, Bihar.

The event was attended by multiple stakeholders of the society including the teachers of the partner schools, students, parents/guardians and other respected personalities of the society.

The Chief Guest was Shri Mahendra Narayan Prasad, one of the most respected and the oldest teacher of Simri Bakhtiyarpur, Saharsa. He appreciated the efforts by the trust to bring about more empowerment and the emphasis on enhanching the quality of education.

The event was a huge success with our champions, partner schools and core team members putting in a lot of effort to make it happen.The champions enthralled the audience with a song and dance performance highlighting women empowerment.

The champions were awarded trophies for all their hard work in conducting the sessions in the schools.

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Attendees during the Annual Meetup in Delhi, December 2016

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ANNUAL MEETUP @ DELHI & EXCURSION

On 11th December, 2016 we organised the Annual Meetup at our Delhi HHT’s office. The event was aimed at sharing stories, experienc-es and challenges in working in the field of education by the entire team. The purpose of this meet up was also to give an exposure to our champions, instructors and manager working in Bihar.

In the meeting, champions Nigar, Jyoti, Komal and Neha shared their experiences with the kids so far. Nigar talked about how she used an example of ‘Ganesh ji ne kitne Laddu khae’ to teach addition and subtraction to the kids. Our Project Manager, Vinay and IT instruc-tor, Sonu also shared their experiences and viewpoints. They also thanked HHT for providing them a platform that helped them in their personal development.

The event was followed by an interactive session on child psychology by our Delhi based volunteer Pooja Patel. Core team member Rakesh Ranjan, and guest teachers Rekha and Rashmi gave suggestions to enhance the teaching and pedagogy skills.

Our esteemed guest Shri Pradeep ji, from Pratham Infotech also shared his thoughts on Digital Literacy and ways to enhance learning through videos.

Lastly, our Managing Trustee, Kshitiz Anand and President, Vatsala narrated about the foundation story of the organization. They told about how this journey for change started in 2008 and were officially shaped as an organization in the year 2012. They thanked everyone for believing in the cause and for associating with them since past 4 years.

On the 12th of December, the team had a day long excursion to Agra visiting the Taj Mahal.

This is an annual event that we will hope to organise every year.

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Sharing stories and getting feedbacks from other participants during Annual Meetup

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Team from Bihar meet the team from Delhi during the Annual meetup in Delhi

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Champions during their visit to Taj Mahal, Agra

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MAJOR EVENTS

The team from Bihar at the Taj Mahal excursion tour

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Fun with Type workshop during the New Delhi World Book Fair, January 2017

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TYPOGRAPHY WORKSHOP AT NEW DELHI WORLD BOOK FAIR

Children need to have more fun in their learning experiences.

Typography is a technique and style of arranging letters, words, num-bers and symbols with different font size and styles to make the ap-pearance of language appealing, creative and readable.

This year New Delhi World Book Fair 2017 organized by National Book Trust was scheduled to be from 7 to 15th January 2017. The book fair brought the participation from over 20 countries. More than 200 publication houses had their stalls; over 400 literary programmes were organized. And on such a big platform, Happy Horizons Trust was selected to conduct the Fun with Type: the Typography Work-shop on the 12th January at the Children’s Pavilion.

It was indeed a proud moment for us. We got the opportunity to bring Typography workshop for the first time on such a huge plat-form. We were allotted only 15-17 minutes for the workshop and it was a challenge for us to do the workshop in that limited time.

A huge shout out to the entire team of HHT who had planned out in details, used time management strategies and did resource collation beforehand due to which we were able to complete the workshop in time and as we had planned.

On the day of execution, the workshop was facilitated by our manag-ing trustee, Kshitiz and the volunteers helped for the execution which led to the success of the workshop. Children enthusiastically took part and finished making posters on time during which they learn the art of typography with fun. This workshop helped us learning the skills of time management and teamwork

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Distribution of Library in a Classroom Kit to partner schools in Bihar

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LIBRARY IN A CLASSROOM KIT LAUNCH WITH PARTNER SCHOOLS

One of the major problems in schools in rural areas is the lack of availability of story books. Imagine a classroom with kids and a fewer number of books to read. We thought of providing some books in the classroom and what could be a better option than Pratham Books ‘Library-in-a-Classroom’ kit.

Happy Horizons Trust is a proud recipient of the ‘Library in a Class-room Kit’ Grant. With immense joy, we donated three kits to Uth-kramit Madhya Vidhyalaya, Julahtoli, Tagore Public School and Rose Valley Senior Secondary School, Simri Bakhtiyarpur, Saharsa. We are thankful to the school principals for the support.

It is our constant endeavor to put emphasis on getting more children in India to read. We are immensely thankful to Pratham Books for this grant and we look forward to spreading the joy of reading amongst more children in rural India. We want to see more students are able to read well.

As a part of this program, we introduced the concept of Reading Captain in each class. A Reading Captain is appointed for a month, and will look to it that more children in his/her class read these stories books. Schools benefiting from this program were requested to allo-cate reading and storytelling periods in the timetable.

As a part of this project, our Managing Trustee, Kshitiz Anand and President Vatsala also explained the different reading levels, the way to assess the students and how to conduct better reading sessions. This information was also shared with the teachers, so that they could pay special attention to identifying the reading levels of the students.

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HHT at the Social Entrepreneurs and Enterprises event in Bangalore

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SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS & ENTERPRISES EVENT PARTICIPATION

As a part of our outreach strategy this year, we started to participate in more events. Participation in these events also allow us to get val-idation of our work and get critical feedback on how to take things foward. This is extremely useful in the development sector, where the challenges to getting substantial work done is immense and some sort of guidance is always welcome.

The IIT Kanpur Alumni Association of Bangalore in association with the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association, conducted the event Social En-trepreneurs and Enterprises 4th March, 2017. The objective of Social Entrepreneurs and Enterprises event was to share insights with Social Entrepreneurs on potential Business Models, funding routes, mentor-ing and Partnerships and to inspire and create awareness about social entrepreneurship as a serious and viable option for the youth.

As a Social Entrepreneur, an ambitious and persistent individual tack-ling major social issues, our Managing Trustee, Kshitiz Anand was invited to speak about the work at Happy Horizons Trust. He spoke about the journey he had faced while shaping Happy Horizons Trust as an organization, the challenges that he and his team members faced while working in the villages of rural Bihar and how they over-came all of them.

The event also had speakers from all over India who are working on major social causes. It was a treat to listen to each one of them and at the same time also share our own experiences with Happy Horizons Trust.

During this event we also explored potential partnerships and putting together a larger network of mentors for the trust and its activities.

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VOLUNTEERS MEET IN DELHI

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Sessions at Azad Park and Tilak Bridge, Delhi conducted by our Delhi Volunteers

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VOLUNTEERS MEET IN BANGALORE

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Story telling and activity sessions conducted by our volunteers in Bangalore

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My alignment with HHT was in 2016. Being an introvert person, I was given a platform to explore myself . It provided me opportunities to put forward my views & ideas. It has boosted the level of confidence within me . I also came to know my other talents like leadership quality, managing skills through the sessions which used to be conducted. Lastly, I would like to say that this organization is helping me in evolving a lot & nurturing myself.- Nidhi Kumari, Volunteer, Delhi

I always wanted to be a part of some social cause besides my major in any field. To an extent, I did a part during my graduation, but it all stopped with the end of graduation degree. After two years of graduation, while exploring the social media, I came across HHT and its agenda matching with my inclinations. Un-like other organizations, HHT is not just working to resolve the existing problem in education system, but also to dissolve the problem to occur in future. I joined HHT Delhi in September 2016 as a content writer and volunteer. By then, field work like taking sessions with children has not started in Delhi as there were no other volunteers. But soon enough with the guidelines of our core team members; I started my hunt for interested and enthusiastic volunteers. Within short span of time, there are around 8 other volunteers. And now I coordinate them as Delhi Coordinator and lead them. Also as content writer, I got the best exposure to feel the problems within education sector and express them in my words to reach out people through an organization. My journey with HHT by now has been a great learning experience which helped me to improve my writing skill as well as to find a leader in me. Hopefully this journey will get even better in the days that follow.- Puja Raj, Volunteer Coordinator, Delhi

I joined HHT through my sister which become the reason of great change in my daily schedule and my life too. As I entered and joined HHT 6 months ago I feel the same dedication and commitment to work with it till now. And my dedication and commitment has become stronger after the story telling session in Azad Park and Tilak bridge. After attending these two sessions I deeply understand the problem of education system. Children are like clay, you can shape them the way you can. After these two sessions, I feel that along with studies, students also need physi-cal and mental development activities. We organize storytelling sessions, fun and crafts sessions, learning through videos activities. I have also got the wonderful experience on some new aspects like fun with typography which we did in World Book Fair in January. Through this, I also learned some different things by my performance with HHT. I felt so good when I completed my task with the group of disabled students and helped them in fun and crafts activities.That time, I felt a great change within me as I never helped any physically disabled and handi-capped people.I always wanted to help this kind of people, but it all becomes true with HHT only and I am thankful for the opportunity.- Ritu Raj, Volunteer, Delhi

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Volunteering increases self-confidence. The more we give, the happier we feel. You are doing good for others and the community, which provides a natural sense of accomplishment. Your role as a volunteer can also give you a sense of pride and identity.

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COLLABORATORS AND PARTNERS

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Happy Horizons Trust partners with Teach for India for its Youth Leadership Development Program, featured in the Teach for India X fellowship. Managing Trustee Kshitiz Anand is selected as a TFIx fellow. Over the year 2017-2018, Teach for India will provide mentoring to HHT.

Happy Horizons Trust partners with Pratham Books for its reading programs, to enhance the reading levels of students in schools. HHT is also a grantee of the Library-in-a classroom kit program, that is distributed in schools in rural Bihar.

Happy Horizons Trust partners with CFSI for its Learning through Videos project. Films made by CFSI are screened across schools in Bihar and discussions on the films are facilitated.

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FINANCES & AUDITS

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12 A certificate

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80G certificate

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THANK YOU DONORS

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Our heartfelt gratitude to people who have immensely believed in usover the past year. Every small contribution means a lot to us.

Special thanks to all our donors

Shri Mahesh GuptaDr Anand BhagatDr Ranjana BhagatRakesh RanjanManish PathakVinay MohantyNitin PandeChantal ChandinhVishwas NallabelliHarmeet KaurNeelabh ArbindManishaAshutosh KumarNithya KonduSandhya VenuJobinRaghuram IyerMurthyManjit & GayatriSunil BhattadSushant KhireNalinikumari GandheSaravanan KasiNaresh AvaduthaSantoshVijaya MamidipakaBinduVivek SharmaAshutosh UpadhyayBharat BylappaNayan JainJasmeet SethiAbhiraj SatarateImicreation TechnologiesAram BhusalJaya MunjuluriKshitiz AnandVatsala

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WHAT LIES AHEAD

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Over the past few years, we have barely scratched the surface. The more time we spend on the field, the more we realise the challenges we are up against. What keeps us moving is the small impacts that happens through our work. So if it is a champion feeling empowered to work further or whether it is the school principals firmly believing in the work we do and supporting us or the parents who see a ray of hope in the engagement sessions with the champions. There are so many stories of hope unfolding in front of us. Nothing would have been possible without your support. So thank you from all of us at the Happy Horizons Trust.

A few of our champions have got offers as teachers in the affordable private schools and that is a great validation of our Youth Leadership Development Program. It gives us further motivation to create more employment opportunities for all the champions who go through our programs and are empowered.

Empowering the local has been one of our strong philosophies and we firmly believe that collaboration with the various stakeholders (Funders to State to Social Entrepreneurs to Local Leaders) is a key to the fulfilling the dream. The complex social fabric of the society that we are working in, provides a lot of challenges. Changing mindsets is a long-term process and perhaps the toughest of them all.

Getting the different stakeholders to invest their energy, time and money short-term, towards better education for the children is an-other major challenge. It has also been challenging to raise funds considering we are not working in the Metropolitan areas.

Scaling up will need more funds, and we will do our best to reach out to grants and other bodies. Expanding the work will come with its set of challenges. We often face problems in implementation due to lack of qualified human resources to drive the work on ground and dealing with the complex social fabric that is deeply ingrained with superstitions, lack of opportunities, early girl child marriage, and discrimination toward girl child, termination of education post class twelve etc.

We also know that the journey has just begun and we have started taking small steps. The journey so far has been tough, but immensely purpose driven and that gives us enough motivation to take things head on in the years to come. We reach out to you to collaborate with us, support us, fund us in our endeavors.

THE JOURNEY AHEAD

happy horizons trust annual report 2016-2017

Government & Nonprofit