Page 56 - EW March 2021

People

pose indoor sports arena offering
facilities for athletics, football and
rugby, sponsored by HDFC Life, was
inaugurated. The trust also conducts
vocational training programmes to
improve the livelihoods of the local
population.
The annual budget of Rs.75 lakh
is funded by patrons including
Jiwanram Sheoduttrai Group, Rashi
Peripherals, Bank of Baroda, HDFC
Life, Urbana and Inner Wheel Club,
among others.
Future plans. A third building is be-
ing constructed on the MVS campus.
“Our objective is to develop a model
institution for community develop-
ment through holistic education,
healthcare and self-reliance. Once
Prakash (centre): model institution objective the new building is ready, we will
expand the school to class X,” says
Committed philanthropist Prakash.

Wind in your sails!
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
olkata-based entrepreneur hood village of Madurdaha during
Kamal P rak as h is co- her morning walk. On being invited English through
Kfounder of Dakshini Prayash by local parents to teach their chil-
(DP, estb.1994), an NGO which runs dren, she started non-formal classes. vernaculars
the free-of-charge Madurdaha Saty- Later, she teamed up with friend
avritti Vidyalaya (MSV), a primary Kamal Prakash to formalise her
school in South 24 Parganas district. informal efforts by registering the MIT AGRAWAL is found-
Founded in 1994 with four stu- Dakshini Prayash Trust, a quarter er-CEO of Gurugram
dents learning under trees cover, century ago. A(Haryana)-based Whiz Kidz
MSV is now housed in two buildings Direct talk. “Registration of the Media Pvt. Ltd (estb.2015). Whiz
in which 400 pre-primary to class Dakshini Prayash Trust 25 years ago Kidz is an edtech company that
VIII students are mentored by 32 was the first step towards establish- offers preschools, primary schools
teachers, eight non-teaching staff ing and developing MVS. Since then, and parents of tier-II-III cities and
and 20 volunteers. After completion this primary school not only provides towns, digital English learning les-
of class VIII, children transfer to all-round education but also healthy sons in seven vernacular languages.
neighbouring government/private nutritious meals to our children. This Through its flagship product
secondary schools with the MVS combination of wholesome nutri- OckyPocky, an English self-learning
management continuing to support tion and engaging teaching-learning application launched in 2017 that
them by way of tutorials, financial has resulted in students’ improved can be downloaded free-of-charge
aid and vocational and higher educa- health and learning outcomes,” says on Android and Windows hand-
tion career guidance. Moreover, MVS Prakash, a director of the Kolkata- held devices, the company delivers
also conducts adult literacy classes based 120-year-old Jiwanram age-appropriate content embedded
for the local community. Sheoduttrai Group of Companies with 20,000 activity-based interac-
Newspeg. With the West Bengal with diversified business interests in tive videos for learning English.
government allowing reopening of metallurgy and engineering. Its videos provide instruction in
schools on February 12, MVS has To motivate and make the educa- Hindi, Marathi and English. Whiz
opened with staggered timings for tion process engaging for children, Kidz also offers online live English
students. co-curricular — yoga, music, dance, classes conducted by faculty fluent
History. The late Nalini Mukherjee art and craft — as also sports in English, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi,
(1929-2010), a resident of Tagore education, are integrated into the Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. Thus far,
Park, used to visit her neighbour- curriculum. In 2018, a multipur- the company has impacted 200,000

56 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2021