It gives us great pleasure to thank each JA Volunteer who helped reach JA programs to 16,000 students in the first four months of FY2010-11. More than 10,000 students have been reached in July 2010 alone.
While it took us 2 years to reach our first 5,000 students, the whole of FY2008-09 to reach the next 10,000 students, such volunteer commitment in helping students learn well makes reaching the entire 200 million student community in India only a matter of time - not distant time!
We are also receiving positive feedback, more frequently, on the qualitative impact of JA programs. To share the most recent feedback as shared by Cognizant Chennai volunteers, in August 2010, who had conducted JA Careers with a Purpose classroom sessions for Revathi and her classmates on 30th Jan 2010 at Govt. Girls Higher Secondary School, Elampillai, Salem:
'I happened to meet one of those students, Ms. Revathi who got inspired by our session and has decided to pursue her higher studies with a new approach on her life. She hails from a poor family and had thoughts of putting a full stop to her education after the completion of her higher secondary course. But we have transformed her thoughts and she is willing to take (up) her higher studies now. She has scored 936/1200 (earlier she used to get around 600) and enrolled herself in B.Sc. (Computer Science) in nearby college with the objective of getting settled in teaching profession. She is now very much clear on the available opportunities in schools, colleges, training industries.'
The intent of the JA program is not to explicitly improve academic performance. This is more a byproduct - all that we did in this program is help students understand work, workplace, what happens in there, what do professionals do, why do they do what they do, what are they supposed to know and how does this break down into Skills, Experience, Education and Knowledge (SEEK developed by JA India volunteers) expectations from a potential participant. We connect the dots for them (from the workplace to their learning process) and they see greater purpose to their learning process. Of course there are some more powerful concepts (Such as VISTA, Factory Model etc.) that are brought to bear in the program but the key being what was discussed above.
Recently another parent called to thank us for the workshop that JA India conducted - we do not give students any answers, we just help them develop a thinking framework for arriving at their own decisions. The student also called to thank us for he felt he has now been able to identify a purpose, has identified his education path and is quite confident he will do well as a professional in this chosen area (which strictly does not find widespread peer acceptance).
SEEK, perceived by volunteers as simple yet powerful, has emerged as a powerful concept - being singularly responsible for making JACWAP the flagship program of JA India.
It is such intense support from partners and volunteers that gives us the confidence to initiate/expand presence in new regions. With support from partners, FY11 will accord thrust to expand presence in Chandigarh and Jaipur while initiating presence across Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Pune. We will continue to support individual volunteers such as those who initiated JA programs in Guwahati and are now keen to sustain/expand the footprint.
