The Awakened Citizen Program - Empower Children with Strong foundation of Values :

The Awakened Citizen Program :

Empower  Children  with  Strong  foundation  of  Values :

A new program designed to enable, inspire and ensure awakened citizens :
By Sri Ramakrishna Mission

Modern education and training have failed to produce men and leaders of character and integrity who can make India attain its past glory. Not only in India, but worldwide, there is a cry for going back to basic values. In order to produce enlightened citizens, we conduct Value Education Programs on Human Resources Development, Self-Development, Leadership and Personality Development etc. for students and teachers of educational institutions. These are based on time-tested Indian wisdom. It is proposed to extend the program to rural areas. Several audio visual aids have been developed to make it attractive. During the year 2010-2011,  110 Value Education programs were conducted  in ashram and in various institutions, mostly schools, outside.

1. Our Objective :

To Inspire students towards enlightened citizenship

To make the Students aware and convinced of the higher dimensions of education, work and life.

To enable students to plan and harmonize their thoughts-actions-goals towards the higher.

To help students to get established in self-development practices to develop powers of mind – viveka, strength and fearlessness to walk the critical path towards the highest perfection and happiness.

Programs for Students, Teachers, Parents on Request of Schools/Colleges

2. (1 to 4 hour Programs or Longer at Ramakrishna Mission or at Schools) :

‘Success Formula’ I (one-hour): Developing Inner Strength for Consistent Success with peace & joy. This is a 1-hour Multi-media Introductory Program. It covers different aspects of success. What is success? Strategies to achieve consistent Success; Importance of developing Inner Strength; Case studies to show that all our choices can either help or retard strength for achieving success

‘Success Formula’ II (four-hours): This is a Workshop on Consistent Success: It helps understand that unless we nurture the ROOTS, character strength, we cannot enjoy FRUITS of Success.

3. A 3-years Enlightened Citizenship program: for Classes VII, VIII and IX (Being evolved)

General Programs:

Human Excellence

Peace Education

Personality Development

Value Education

Self-development

Leadership

Developing Powers of Mind: confidence, discrimination, concentration, will, etc.

Value & Health Education: Harmful effects of Tobacco, Prevention of TB Awareness of potential & how to maximize it.

Time Management & Harmonizing Values, Beliefs, Desires, Goals, Thoughts.

Facilitate Starting & Running of Study Circles/Youth Forum (1-hour per week)

Programs for Teachers

Training of Teachers as Resource Person

4. Our Ongoing Programs :

In 2013, as part of Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations; Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi envisaged developing a comprehensive Three Year Graded Value Education Programme for school students. The aim was to empower students in a real and tangible way and help them develop as enlightened citizens.

a. Pilot Program

As the first step in this endeavour, Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi in collaboration with Illumine Knowledge Resources, Pvt. Ltd. Bombay – a reputed Training organization, developed a pilot programme which comprised of 5 modules of 1½ hours each. Principals of several schools in Delhi and NCR were invited for a half day seminar at the ashrama premises in July 2013 where they were introduced to the salient ideas behind the programme. Many schools were interested in conducting the Pilot programme. Consequently, between October 2013 and January 2014, Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi conducted the pilot programme in about 50 schools in Delhi and NCR. The entire programme was possible thanks to the financial assistance received from ONGC Ltd. Impact of the program was assessed by surveying a sample of 382 students, 28 teachers and 9 facilitators.

93.2 % of the students said that they had more respect and belief in themselves
83.5% of the students felt that everyone is equally endowed with all the universal possibilities.
The Awakened Citizen Programme – An Overview

Following the great success of the pilot programme, it was decided to develop a Three Year Graded Value Education Programme for classes VII, VIII and IX. This new programme, called The Awakened Citizen Programme would comprise of 48 modules (16 modules for each class) of 45 minutes each. BHEL came forward to sponsor this programme and with active support of the CMD and the Director, HR, soon an agreement was signed with BHEL. As part of the Project, Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi was to develop the complete courseware of the programme, train 1000 teachers in NCR and Bhopal and assess the impact of the programme.

b. Implementation of The Awakened Citizen Programme

Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi in collaboration with Illumine Knowledge Resources, Ltd. has developed the complete courseware of the The Awakened Citizen Programme. For each of the 48 Sessions a Power Point Presentation and a Facilitator’s Guide have been developed. The team at Illumine led by Shri V.Srinivas has contributed enormously in this regard.

c. Training of Facilitators in Delhi

In order to apprise schools of the details of the programme, a workshop was conducted mainly for the school principals on 7th December 2013 in Delhi which was inaugurated by Mr. Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE. The workshop was a grand success and generated great enthusiasm amongst the school principals.

As part of the project, a total of 1000 teachers in Delhi and Bhopal are to be trained so that they can run the programme in their respective schools. Accordingly, the teachers’ training was started in small groups of 50-100 (for optimal assimilation and interaction) in April 2014. The inaugural training session on 21st April, 2014 was graced by Mr. Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE and Mr. B.P.Rao, CMD, BHEL. A total of 1072 teachers of schools in Delhi and NCT have been trained in 15 workshops conducted during the year.

d. Training of Facilitators in Bhopal

In Bhopal too a workshop was conducted in Ravindra Bhavan, Bhopal on 15th January 2014 for the principals of the local schools. Five training workshops were conducted during the year for teachers in Bhopal. The inaugural training session for government schools was graced by Mr. S.R.Prasad, Executive Director, BHEL, Bhopal on 5th Aug, 2014. A total of 344 teachers of schools in Bhopal have been trained during the year.

e.  Training of Facilitators in Shivpuri, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad

The above workshops were widely publicized by CBSE, and consequently there were a lot of requests from schools not only in NCR and Bhopal, but also in other areas. The teachers’ training programme therefore had to be extended beyond the stipulated 1000 teachers. Teachers’ training was conducted in four other cities/towns viz. Shivpuri, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad and total of 300 teachers were trained.

f. Impact Audit

From February 2015, Ramakrishna Mission is engaged in auditing the impact in sample schools. A number of principals and teachers have observed that besides expected positive changes in the students, there have been appreciable changes in the attitudes of teachers themselves.

g. Extending the Programme to all CBSE Schools

Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi is currently discussing the prospect of extending the Awakened Citizen Programme to over 15,000 CBSE schools spread all across the country. As part of this endeavour about 72,000 teachers of CBSE schools will receive training. Smt. Smriti Irani, Minister, Human Resource Development formally launched the programme at a function held in the ashrama premises on 14th February 2015.

h. Value Education Programme for Parents

Many schools participating in the Awakened Citizen Programme felt the need for a programme for the parents of the school going children. Responding to this request, five training sessions were conducted for over 800 parents from 5 schools.