CSR Box, May 20, 2021
Cooped up in their homes as they are, missing out on play and school due to the lockdown, scores of children in Karnataka’s hinterland are nevertheless making the most of their time indoors mixing learning with play, thanks to the Curious Minds summer camps run Aequs Foundation in the name of the Anasuya Melligeri Science Centre with the Agastya International Foundation.
Children in the 6th to 9th standards have been logging on to the Curious Minds classes twice daily for sessions lasting 90 minutes each using either their parent’s mobile phones or computers to learn by doing activities that are fun and easy to carry out. The program focuses on ‘learning by doing’ where children are encouraged to experiment and gain knowledge through reflective observation.
What used to be a typical classroom program went online this year due to the pandemic but with a tremendous positive impact with over 1800 students participating in the camps from Hubballi and Belagavi alone. Apart from the Google Meet sessions they also keep in touch with their instructors on 50 odd WhatsApp groups.
“The objective of Aequs Foundation’s STEM program is to impart the fundamentals of science through an experiential learning mode and improve awareness and confidence among children and spark their curiosity and nurture creativity. Curious Minds is one of the programs run by the Aequs Foundation which seeks to positively impact communities in and around Aequs’ manufacturing ecosystems. Several projects like the Science Centre, the Mobile Labs, Science Fairs, and teacher training programs are geared towards this”, said Mrs. Mai Melligeri, Chairperson, Aequs Foundation.
We are engaged with the Agastya International Foundation since 2017 for our STEM initiatives in and around Belagavi and Hubbali and Curious Minds is one among the many successful programs run by the partnership, she added.
The program’s success can be gauged from the fact some of the children have gone on to successfully innovate with interesting concepts. For instance, 8th class student Abhishek Hendarageri from the GHPS Ramapura in Dharwad district has innovated to use speed breakers to generate electricity. Similarly, Shivaraj Mulimani of GHPS
Bandiwad, also from Dharwad, has crafted an onion separator to make his farmer father’s life easy.
Significantly, the Aequs Foundation-Agastya partnership has also taken up the task of bringing up to speed some 600 students of the 10th standard in the districts of Belagavi and Hubbali with their curriculum. These students will have to appear for their final examinations sometime in June soon after the lockdown is lifted.
About Aequs Foundation
Set up in 2016, Aequs Foundation is the corporate social responsibility arm of Aequs with a mandate to positively impact communities in and around Aequs’ manufacturing ecosystems. The Foundation aims at inspiring and educating underprivileged children in Sanitation, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Safety through its various community and regional initiatives that help bring measurable and sustainable changes to the society and improve quality of life. It has particularly focused on imparting education through experiential learning and developmental activities apart from training teachers and contributing to improve school infrastructure. The Foundation runs the Anasuya Melligeri Science & Technology Centre at Hubbali to provide hands-on exposure to students in STEM curriculum. In Belagavi it runs Mobile Science Laboratories to benefit students at government schools apart from a host of other initiatives in the two cities. To date, the CSR initiatives of Aequs, have impacted nearly 13,000 students across 83 schools in 69 villages in the Belagavi and Hubbali regions of Karnataka.
About Aequs
Aequs is a diversified contract manufacturing company providing vertically integrated product solutions across the Aerospace and Consumer Goods industries. By leveraging its manufacturing ecosystems, Aequs reliably delivers supply chain efficiencies to its global customer base. Aequs currently employs over 5,000 people and operates manufacturing facilities across India, France, and the United States.
This article first appeared in the Economic Times