Wonderful things happen in our world because of the talents, passions, and smarts of the people. These were the motivational expressions for the people who work at Intel Involved and were asked to participate in the Winners of Wonder (WOW) contest to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The objective was to motivate employees to “do something wonderful and meaningful” for the communities in need and understand their social responsibilities. Among 300 applications submitted by the employees, 50 Intel employees inspired the judges to win this special opportunity in honor of our 50th anniversary. Among those 50 selected projects and NGOs, 8 projects were from India and Manthan SVK was the one from India, selected to setup Smart Libraries at 4 Manthan SVK Centers in Bihar & Trigger smart learning concepts among young students. The Objectives were:
- Setup 4 Smart Libraries including 50"LED smart screen - wifi+pen drive enabled
- Procurement of Books & Smart Learning Kits with small hands on experiments on Maths + Science
- Setup shelves, Tables, Chairs with learning pad & sitting carpets
- Pen drives with educational content (class KG to 12th) for the centers
- TOT to the teachers and volunteers on Maths and science kits and on the smart access of LED
Therefore, to achieve the desired outcomes, two Intel Involved employees, Kapil Bajaj and Sneha travelled all the way to Bihar from their Bangalore office for 11 days and established the 4 smart libraries along with the Manthan SVK volunteers from Head Office and Bihar branch. The inauguration of the smart libraries were done on 17th Oct, 2018 at village Bakror, Bodhgaya, Gaya, Bihar; 20th Oct, 2018 at Village Dhanoj Dharampur, Saharsa, Bihar; 23rd Oct, 2018 at Village Parsauni, Supaul, Bihar and 24th Oct, 2018 at Village Padampur, Pachgachiya, Saharsa , Bihar.
Manthan SVK imparts complete academic, physical, intellectual, nutritional & value based education to its students, who are underprivileged from slums and remote villages, drop outs or even first generation learners; through non-formal centers in an attempt to integrate them with mainstream education. There are 4 centers operational with 500 students in the flood affected & extremely poor villages of Saharsa, Supaul and Gaya districts of the state Bihar of India. In the endeavor to bring world-class facilities & experiences to the children, there was a high need to bring the concept of Smart Library for the children where they can learn with fun way methodologies and have excess to the digital resources which is often available only to the privileged ones. The Project will attract more parents also who are still not able to send their kids to school due to multiple reasons, to provide their children a quality education. As each child has right to education, the Project setup will ensure sustainability as the material procured will be intact even after 5 years (except any repair cost), so each of the single library setup will be helpful to thousands of children. The project will role model & attract other local & Govt bodies to setup smart learning libraries in schools.
The guests at the event were the village representatives and officials from Sarv shiksha Abhiyaan.
