Nexus of Good: Learning through exemplification

Janyaa foundation was a proud recipient of the Nexus of Good Annual Award this year. What they have already achieved and their plans for the future constitute a wonderful example of a nexus of good wherein public-private partnership is being leveraged to scale good work.

Janyaa Foundation's mission is to enable children to impact their communities through experiential learning. They believe that "learning by doing" will help children develop a strong STEM foundation that they can apply to their daily lives.

The three pillars of the mission are education, innovation, and social impact. Janyaa has developed unique initiatives that encompass all three.

• Janyaa Nava Nirmaan (JNN) — a one-of-a-kind programme that includes Janyaa Lab In a Box (JLIB) — where children learn co-curricular science and maths principles through hands-on learning; Janyaa Social Innovation Challenge (JSIC) where children apply the Janyaa learning to create models designed to solve real-life problems; and Janyaa Children 2 Community Project (JCP) where the science and maths models developed by children are implemented at school or community level with donor support.

● Janyaa Nature Lab (JNL) is another one-of-a-kind programme where children apply their science & maths knowledge in growing vegetables in their school gardens while learning about basic financial concepts, nutritional benefits, and environmental impact among others.

Janayaa's recent work

Janayaa Nature Lab (JNL)

In this programme, students learn:

Finance: Students learn how to plan their investment, the effect of interest rates on their loans, growing gardens with less expenditure, and earning more profits by selling the produce.

Ecosystem: Students learn about soil, wind, beneficial bugs and pollinators.

Environment: Students learn about sustainable living, compost, and water harvesting.

Science: Students learn about photosynthesis, soil composition, etc.

Food and nutrition: Students learn about food systems and nutrition.

Children are taught approximately 60 science and maths experiments through JNL. JNL also helps students develop crucial real-life skills like marketing, presentation, and negotiation, by engaging them in fake vegetable produce sales at their schools.

JNL Krishna

Janyaa is implementing the JNL programme in 6 ZPH schools in the Krishna district. The programme aims to educate close to 480 children from grades VII and VIII in learning about ecosystems, environment etc. by applying science and maths concepts to growing vegetables in their schools.

Janyaa's team has distributed the kits to the schools and a workshop session has been conducted for 30 teachers. During this workshop, teachers were trained on how to relate science and maths topics to activities in the vegetable gardens. Students are currently working on the preparation of soil.

JNL Hyderabad

Janyaa is implementing the JNL program in 12 Zilla Parishad High Schools (ZPHS) in Hyderabad. The programme aims to educate 1,113 children from grades VII and VIII.

Janyaa's team has distributed the kits to the schools and is now conducting workshop sessions for 51 teachers. This programme started in October this year. Students worked on preparing the soil while learning concepts such as the pH of soil and the type of soil. Currently, they are sowing seeds and growing vegetable plants such as tomatoes and okra.

Janyaa Nava Nirman (JNN)

The programme teaches approximately 340 state-of-the-art science and maths experiments, which are developed in partnership with Stanford alumni, and government teachers and science/mathematics experts.

During the programme, Janyaa tapers off its involvement while empowering both teachers and students to own the programme and continue after project completion. The focus is on the capacity building of teachers by conducting regular workshops, and also on building leadership skills in students so they can run the program for years to come. The organisation supports both students and teachers with experiment videos as a support tool.

Monthly informal assessments, along with Baseline and Endline tests, are conducted to get an understanding of student learning outcomes from Janyaa's programme interventions.

Suven Trust

Janyaa Foundation is implementing the JNN programme in 20 ZPH schools for three years in partnership with Suven Trust. The programme aims to educate close to 4,600 students from classes VI to X.

The team is currently preparing the kits which will later be distributed to the schools, after which teacher workshops will be conducted.

TTWREIS & TSWREIS

Janyaa has partnered with Telangana Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TTWREIS) and Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) to implement the JNN program in 30 schools in Telangana State for eight months. The program aims to educate close to 12,000 students from classes VI to X.

Janyaa team has distributed kits in all 30 schools, conducted 6 workshop sessions for 158 maths and science teachers. The workshops were a huge success with teachers giving rave reviews. These workshops are interactive where teachers are also given experiments to work with. In their feedback, the teachers have stated that in their entire career this was the only time they were given experiments to work with during the workshops. This is a great testimony as this is about teachers' empowerment. Baseline test was also conducted.

Gland Pharma

Janyaa has partnered with Gland Pharma to implement the JNN programme in 11 ZPH schools in the Medchal-Malkajgiri district in Telangana over a period of eight months. The programme aims to educate close to 2,500 high school children from classes VI to X.

The programme started in July 2022 with the distribution of Janyaa kits. Janyaa's team has distributed the kits and conducted an in-person teacher workshop session for maths and science teachers. Monthly virtual workshops are also being conducted for the teachers to provide ongoing support. A baseline test was also conducted. Facilitators have visited the schools 117 times to monitor teacher demonstrations and student peer group sessions. These sessions are helping students practise with the experiments on a weekly basis to improve their retention levels.

Janyaa'a unique value proposition

Janyaa has been a part of India's educational ecosystem for 13 years. This gives them an acute understanding of the country's demographics, cultural sensitivities, and educational trends. Their grassroot experience helps them secure buy-in and support of just not the government but also the parent community to ensure programmatic success. For all these reasons, Janyaa is uniquely positioned to support children's experiential learning needs in the STEM domain, hence empowering them to impact their communities toward socio-economic development.

Well done, Janyaa. Keep going. Keep inspiring others.

Views expressed are personal