On our way from Pune to Bangalore we decided to stop in Dharwar to meet with Venky. So on July 15th we reached Dharwar and since we were leaving the very next day we decided to meet with Venky and the team at Vidya Poshak first, even before checking in at the hotel.   

But Venky had to go elsewhere, so we went and checked in to the hotel, had our lunch and reached Vidya Poshak’s office at 5.30 pm. We thought the meeting would be for 30 minutes or so, but Venky and Sanjeev had so much to share and we found so many common issues to solve that the meeting lasted nearly 2 hours ! 

Vidya Poshak is amongst the earliest partners of ShikshaDaan. They are validated by Give India and Charities Aid Foundation and the Infosys foundation has been a big supporter for them initially. Vidya Poshak has been doing an outstanding job for the past 15+ years in about ten districts of Karnataka. They realised early on that it was important to not expand their operations too much as their processes for validating the beneficiaries are very stringent. 

Vidya Poshak supports the same target population as ShikshaDaan – the students who have passed their 10th standard and are looking for scholarships to study further. A good addition that Vidya Poshak has done for overall development of these students is to introduce a skill development course as well along with funding their education. They also have setup libraries across the districts that help these students with reference books. 

We got talking about mentoring and the challenges with that. At ShikshaDaan, we hope to develop a good sustainable model for mentoring because it’s critical for the student’s success. Since Vidya Poshak and ShikshaDaan’s beneficiaries come from very poor families, their exposure is very limited. Mentoring helps provide that exposure. 

Vidya Poshak needs funding for their key executives’ salaries… We don’t know if organizations are willing to fund their salaries. It would be a great way to sustain the employee’s interest and continue the great work the team is doing. The 2 hour meeting was Vidya Poshan for Krishnan and me … We learnt a lot and hopefully we will help Venky and the Vidya Poshak team to get connected with more such NGOs and individuals who can help take forward their good work. 

Check out their website Vidya Poshak and their Facebook page for further details on their work.