eVidyaloka – Where Happiness Prevails

The post for today is about an NGO-eVidyaloka that works to bridge the gap between urban and rural education in India.

It was established on 28th January 2011, with the idea to enable quality education to the rural schools in India through an online platform by the name eVidyaloka.

And today, eVidyaloka top’s the list of non-profit organizations that impart online education to the government schools in the villages of India.

They work by connecting passionate volunteers from across the globe to the deserving rural students of our country with the help of technology.

As one of the volunteer teachers, my experience so far has been a source of confidence, blissful joy, and soul satisfaction to me.

Life has become better, and hopefully, It is the divine intervention that I would forever be grateful to God.

I have seen so many passionate volunteers of various age groups effortlessly doing their best with one motto of passionately educating the children.

The Volunteers are a versatile group that ranges from working professionals, Engineers, Homemakers, An former scientist who worked with Nasa, inspiring septuagenarian to Postgraduate students.

The eVidyaloka team was kind enough to acknowledge the contribution I did, as a volunteer teacher.

They awarded me as one of the best volunteer teacher debutantes for the year 2020.

And it is going to be three years now, and this volunteering opportunity is unambiguously the best decision that I took for myself in my life.

So I am sure many of my friends from the blogging and writing community, The Thank You blog readers reading this, would be interested to begin their volunteering journey. I wish you all the very best and happy volunteering.

And this post written on National Education Day elaborates on how to become a volunteer with eVidyaloka and contribute to the education of rural India.

1. Go sign up on their website. https://www.evidyaloka.org/
2. Drop a mail to eVidyaloka Volunteer Management Team anusree.nived@evidyaloka.org
3. You will get a call back from the respective state coordinator.

Here are 10 essential starter points to begin and progress as a Volunteer teacher.

1. You will be assigned as one of the online eVidyaloka teachers to schools in different states of our country based on your mother tongue.
2. You need a good internet connection and your laptop. You can give your classes by skype/ zoom/ meet.
3. There would be class assistants who will be present in the class with the students. The class assistants are native to villages where the schools are situated and would help throughout the session.
   As they know the students better with their support, it would be easy to begin teaching your respective subjects and plan your academic lessons as per the needs of the class.
4. The Minimum time commitment they look for is three months from the volunteers.
5. A minimum of two hours for two days every week is the requirement.
6. You are free to choose any two days of the week based on your comfort except for the weekends.
7. You can choose between three subjects maths, science, and English. You can choose to teach 6th, /7th / 8th grades.
8. There are different programs like NSIC – National student innovation challenge, LC – Leadership curriculum where the volunteer teachers can work as mentors for the students.
9. You would get access to the WhatsApp group of schools allotted to you for rapid communication.
10. You need to inform a day earlier in case of class cancellation from your (volunteer) side.

Here are the other current volunteering opportunities and campaigns at eVidyaloka.

1. The joy of Reading – this program is designed to instill the reading habit in children. Requirements are for Tamil.
2. Social and Emotional Learning – The focus here is on the overall development of the students. Requirements are for Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.
3. Revision Teaching – Volunteer teacher connects with students for Live Doubt clearing sessions/ revision sessions. The current requirement is for Telugu.

This section of the post would be updated when there are new volunteering opportunities.

Here are two more ways to contribute

1. Content Volunteering – You can also contribute as a content volunteer where you can prepare PPT and video lessons for students of different grades.
2. Enable a rural child’s Education– by donating only 1000 rupees.

I dedicate this post to my students at eVidyaloka who helped me discover the passionate teacher in me.