LEAD Udghosh at BHU, Varanasi

​In the presence of Mr. Dilip Modi (Founder Ek Soch Sandbox), Ms. Vinita Sethi (Managing Trustee, Ek Soch), Mr. Naveen Jha (CEO, Deshpande Foundation), Mr. Vikram Dheer (Chief HR Officer, Spice Digital) on 20th September, LEAD Udghosh an event of Ek Soch Sandbox, Deshpande Foundation was conducted at Entrepreneurship Seminar Hall, MCIIE, IIT BHU. The event LEAD Udghosh was organised in the presence of 186​ LEaders who were selected from different colleges of Varanasi, BHU and IIT, along with them the local college faculties and parents too witnessed the event. ​

College students who are the part of LEAD and who implemented their ideas in community showcased their 15 leadership projects­ that they had done in Varanasi.

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Around 120 new students are selected in LEAD based on their innovative leadership ideas that they want to implement in Varanasi and surrounding. These ideas are concerned with existing social issues and the betterment of the society. During this occasion selected students from different colleges extended with the support of mentorship and fund to implement their ideas into action

​As the chief guest remarks Mr. Dilip Modi appreciated the efforts of the young leaders and also spoke about great leaders; Mr. Madan Mohan Malaviya and Dr. Abdul Kalam, he also shared his view on the reason of starting the Ek Soch Sandbox in Varanasi. Mr. Naveen Jha opened the platform for the youth to ask the questions rather than giving speech. Students had meaningful questions on the purpose of LEAD, how to be a CEO/Leader, what is the impact of leadership projects, etc for which Naveen patiently answered the questions of Students.

The best performing LEaders were appreciated for initiating the projects in the society.The awards were presented to Mr. Abhishek and Ms. Aaliza  as Master LEader, Praveen, Deepak, Rohit as the Best LEader and Krishna, Shikha, Ram as the Active LEaders.

Now the LEAD will extend its support to the students of SHEPA college, KIT, SMS college, DAV college, Vasanta Kanya College, Vasanta college for Women, BHU –MSW dept., BHU – Agri., BHU- LAW dept. BHU- Tourism, BHU- Faculty of ARTS

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On 16th January, Deshpande Foundation launched its third Sandbox in India called “Ek Soch Sandbox” Uttar Pradesh in the presence of Mr. Dilip Modi (Chairman, Spice Mobility Limited & Founder Ek Soch Sandbox), Ms. Vinita Sethi (Managing Trustee of Ek Soch Sandbox), Dr. Rajeev Sangal (Director, IIT BHU), and Mr. Naveen Jha (CEO, Deshpande Foundation).

LEAD Program works with college youth to give them a platform to understand the values of their ideas and execute the ideas through which they would gain the leadership skills and entrepreneurial mindset with practical exposure. 

 

​LEAD Uttar Pradesh facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/LEAD-Uttar-Pradesh-817600124959612/timeline/

LEader of DIET College volunteered to teach Government schools creatively.

We all know how learning experience is important for children. In DIET institute students are given special training how to teach children. That is why LEader Stuti Mishra, along with her friends decided to teach in a governmental school of Vikas Nagar in Lucknow on January 10, 2015. 

 

As a team of leaders, they have decided to teach for the whole week using new interactive methods of teaching and entertaining games instead of traditional lessons. During the whole teaching week, students were using some materials to teach in an interactive manner. 

While teaching language lessons, students did some play role games. Stuti Mishara and her friends also focused on physical education lessons. Below is a feedback of one child named Rahul: “Madam ji ab kal se padhne mei maja nahi ayegi.” All the children were very happy to get contact numbers of their teachers to keep in touch in the near future.

LEader Vikash of IIT(BHU),VARANASI created awareness on women empowerment at Rajasthan

A women is a mother, sister and a daughter. She is worshiped in India as Goddess yet in Indian society, women is harassed and a girl child is killed before she is born in hers mother's womb .Gender discrimination and domestic violence is highly prevalent in India.

 

Vikash believes the change can happen only if women herself is empowered to fight against the injustice towards her .

Hence Vikas decided to become a LEader and  took up a LEAD  project 'ROAR' to boost their confidence and make them strong from within. He created a platform for girls to exhibit their talent and increase their networking. Vikas choose rural area as his target as he felt the child marriage and dowry cases were more from rural areas.

First and foremost he conducted speech and discussion for women at YSN College, Sohli, where around 50 girls participated. The discussion was about improving the status of women in the society.
 

The solutions suggested by girls were

 1.Dowry should be strictly banned  because of dowry ,parents consider their daughters as extra responsibility. Parents do not  provide proper education and same rights to their daughters as to their sons as they consider women will get married and waste of their money. So, all girls should decided to stand against the dowry system in their relative’s marriage.

2. Also “ghhonghat-pratha”(Face covering)  in rural regions was part of discussion and the girls condemned the same. 

Finally the conclusion of the whole discussion was that the girls should also be provided equal freedom as boys have in society. The second event that LEader Vikash conducted was Singing and Dancing.30 students participated with 200 spectators. LEader Vikash wanted to energize them and motivate them to aim high and achieve greater.

The third event he did was Rangoli competition and lantern decoration . Women are creative and this platform will expose them to several varieties possible  and will cause exchange of ideas and will broaden their horizon. The last event he took up was "Fancy dress" with theme as 'Rural India' . This he did with an intention to increase the knowledge about Indian culture among  girls.

 

Finally after conducting four events, LEader Vikash says, "I feel glad that girls participated actively and showed keen interest in bringing a change in the society ". LEader Vikash hopes to conduct more activities of these kind and encourage women to participate in greater number and expose them to life beyond the confines of a house.

LEader Sandeep of BBDNITM, Lucknow motivates the youngsters to complete their higher studies.

 Higher Education is extremely essential for an individual's growth .Higher education brings in more money ,more security and a better standard of living. However in rural areas, people are not encouraged to go for higher education. Girls are  married off at an early age and boys are asked to work at the fields . This usually happens because the people are unaware of benefits of higher education and have a myth that higher education is expensive.

The LEader Sandeep Nandan wanted people to get rid of this belief and encourage their children to go for higher studies. Hence he took up a LEAD project 'Utshavardan' to educate students as well as their parents about the benefits of higher eduction .

LEader Sandeep and his team member Gaurav Verma contacted a primary teacher of a village where basic facilities like electricity and road was not available and most of the children were quitting studies after secondary education. Sandeep took a session for them where he educated them about benefits of higher education and facilities provided by the Governemnt.

 

At the end of the project Sandeep says "I feel happy that I shared knowledge and created awareness  among students.Even students got excited and responded warmly to our sessions and  showed keenness in pursuing higher education".

Sandeep feels that he became a better human being with this project  and got to interact with different kinds of people .

LEader Apurva from City College Of Management organised carreer guidance for Higher Secondary students.

10th and 12th class students are the ones who are at the most important stage of life . It is the phase of life where their future gets  decided with the course and career they choose. However, all the 10th and 12th  students face a problem of deciding their career as they lack knowledge . Most of the students do not  have exposure about career options available and they wont be aware of the scope of each career .

The under-privileged students wont even have anyone at family to guide them and encourage them to choose  a career which utilizes their talent and skills to the best. LEader Apurva identified this problem in the society and thought of contributing her best in improving this condition by guiding them. Apurva believes that a  strong India can  only be  created when the youth of India are  trained to be skilled and work  with a desire to excel. For this choosing a career which suits their abilities is extremely essential.
Hence she took up the LEAD project of guiding the students of 10 and 12th class through career seminar.

Firstly, she choose a  Government school at Barbanki where the number of under privileged students were high. Then, she approached the principal of the school and took their permission to conduct her 'Career Guidance Seminar". Later, She and her team members  conducted a session for students on various courses and career opportunities in India  . In-between, she also showed them the videos to prevent the session from becoming monotonous. Few audios were also played to increase the curiosity among students.

LEader Apurva was initially scared as people were critic about her abilities and even she was scared about  speaking on stage in front of several people . However  her desire to educate the children overcame her fears and brought foreword the leadership qualities hidden within her. By the end of her project Apurva was very delighted .

Apurva says "The joy and excitement of the kids while they were asking questions was heart warming . I am happy that I was able to guide the students and also was able to know my leadership qualities."

LEader Stuti of DIET College, Lucknow, helps artisans to solve their problems.

Elder people are respected in every society and in every community. Communication with elder generation can help young people to realize many problems and to learn about first hand experience. 

Having this in mind, LEader Stuti Mishra organized an event on 12 December, 2014 where 15 girls and artisan woman shared their problems regarding work. Before the event organized by Stuti Mishra, artisan women had never realized their problems. However, this event shed the light on many difficulties that artisan people have in bringing their art to the market. Because of this, craft production by artisan people is limited to only those who already know about them. The event organized by Stuti was intended to help artisan people realize their problems in craft production and get rid of them in the future.

There are some of the problems discussed during the event:

1. Artisans’ work does not reach those who wish to buy it. Crafts are limited to artisan community only.

2. Artisan women are exploited by agents when they produce their work on a contract basis

3. Raw materials are very expensive

4. Creative work by artisans is not known by their names. Real names of producers are hidden under the brand name.

5. Artisans’ religion, which is Muslim, does not allow exposing their work, so they need to keep themselves behind parda system.

6. There is a lack of recognition and promotion of artists

7. Lack of resources

8. Direct communication with the market is not maintained

9. Marketing bottleneck

10. Health issues such as early eyesight problems, etc.

Launching of Ek Soch Sandbox_16th January 2015

On 16^th January, Deshpande Foundation launched its third Sandbox in India called “Ek Soch Sandbox” in IIT BHU, Varanasi. The event was hosted in collaboration with MCIIE, TBI at Prof. Gopal Tripathi Auditorium, Chemical Department, IIT BHU in Varanasi. The first sandbox is located in Hubballi of Karnataka State and second one is in Nizamabad of Telangana state.

The official Program of Launching Ek Soch Sandbox began with introduction of special guests: Mr. Dilip Modi (Chairman, Spice Mobility Limited & Founder Ek Soch Sandbox), Dr. Rajeev Sangal (Director, IIT BHU), Ms. Vinita Sethi (Managing Trustee of Ek Soch Sandbox) and Mr. Naveen Jha (CEO, Deshpande Foundation).

 

The guests interacted with Leaders who showed their projects as part of LEAD Program to know more about their Leadership initiatives. LEAD is the first program that started in Varanasi in November. In the last two months more than 60 students have taken part in LEAD Program of the Ek Soch Sandbox. More than 25 leadership projects are completed and the best 10 were showcased during the launching of Ek Soch Sandbox. 2 students from Lucknow and around 50 students from Varanasi took part in the exhibition.

The ceremony began with lightening of the Lamp and opening of the banner by the guests.

The event started with a melodious song by Dayavati Modi Academy children, which was followed by the speech of Dr. Rajeev Sangal who focused on the impact of the work that is taken for the better of the society. He said that, “Leaders are self made; they do not try to be a leader but become a leader on their own”.

The event continued with the sharing of experience by few of the Leaders like Abhishek Upadhayay, Shivam Singh, Sudhanshu, Apurva Singh, Sheeka and Sandeep Nandan Mishra. After, the students were awarded for their leadership work. Anamika (LLM) and Mayanka (M.Sc.) from BHU were awarded for the best community work, Apurva (City college) and Sandeep (BBDNITM) from Lucknow were awarded for leadership initiatives and Pritha Khetan from FMS BHU was awarded as the most active leader. Leader Kirti, Abhishek, Shivam, Aditya, Santosh were appreciated for their leadership initiatives and work for the better of the community.

30 students from a primary school and 30 from Dayavati Modi Academy took part in a science exhibition organized by Agastya Foundation. The audience welcomed the local NGO representatives, faculties from BHU, IIT, other local colleges and business people. 

The ceremony was followed by guests’ address to the public. Mr. Dilip Modi encouraged people to come up with their sustainable approaches and participate in the building of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives. Encouraging young student’s leadership work he said, “I am surprised to see the work done by the youth in creating solutions for many people every day. I congratulate with the work done by Deshpande Foundation through Ek Soch Sandbox in east Uttar Pradesh region”. Then, Mr. Naveen Jha spoke about the importance of the Sandbox approach and said, “We should focus more on the solutions rather than problems, 90 percent of our effort should go in finding and implementing the solutions”. Ms. Vinita Sethi concluded with thanks to all guests for their support and participation in the inauguration ceremony.

The public was inspired by the speech of each guest. Overall, the exchange of thoughts by the LEaders and the Guests was indeed a short and sweet interaction between them.

The ceremony then was finished with launching of the Mobile Van by Mr. Dilip Modi, Ms. Vinita Seti, Mr. Naveen Jha and Mr. Ajay Suman Shukla when the ribbon was cut.

The event was hosted and supported by Mr. Ajay Suman Shukla (Functional Head of LEAD Program, Deshpande Foundation)