Nexus of Good: Exemplary outreach

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all!, so said Aristotle. Truly speaking, education, if it does not create a better human being and a responsible citizen per se, then is it education at all?

Over the last three decades, Oasis has attempted to identify and complement this vacuum of humanness and life-education in the present system through its scientifically researched programmes.

The year 2022 began with a series of state government as well as non-government partnership MoUs across 10 regions of India as part of Oasis Initiative Partnership for Positive Change (P4PC), with a selfless spirit of Giving by Paying It Forward. Every engagement focused on influencing the environment around young generation in particular by demonstrating personal change and self-leadership.

The execution stage commenced with introductory 3-day Oasis L3 (Live-Love-Learn) workshops for selected batches of HoIs in each partnership. More than two dozen workshops, mostly residential, were conducted across India, covering nearly 500 HoIs, including Principals, Headmasters, and selected lead teachers of schools in Jammu & Kashmir and Tamil Nadu, Block Resource Coordinators in Gujarat, SCERT officers of the School Education Department in Telangana, NSS Program Officers of the Collegiate Department in Telangana, and educators at the Kerala State Civil Services Academy. Additionally, workshops were held for founders and heads of NGO collectives, especially educational trusts representing rural and urban sectors in Delhi NCR, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh.

While the pilot programmes of Oasis partnerships begin with Teachers Education, the ultimate beneficiary essentially is the young generation. And so has been the design of every project nationwide — be the change you wish to see in the world and the future generation.

Oasis National Leadership Retreat in January 2023 celebrated this journey of diverse pilots in all these regions. It brought together around 120 representatives from various state government education departments and NGOs. Representatives of each region underwent National Facilitators Training Retreat to enable them to be catalysts to cascade Oasis programmes for teachers and students in their respective cities and states.

One of the first to be initiated was at Telangana Collegiate Education Department in partnership with NSS. Thirty programme officers representing one selected government college from each district of the state underwent a yearlong course of intensive self-education and empowerment in 2022. The training was conducted at Oasis Valleys, Vadodara. These POs then led a month long Oasis Misaal project in all colleges — a systematic 3 layered programme to identify, nurture and prepare young changemakers.

More than 1,500 youth from 30 colleges participated through three screening stages of creative essays, group dialogue and project work. 174 youth successfully emerged as potential change-leaders.

The celebration event held at Hyderabad marked the success of this first phase of partnership where these young leaders and educators came together to share their joy and resolve to make a difference to the community around them.

These NSS POs who were further empowered as master trainers facilitated Oasis L3 workshops for these young leaders to aid their learning journey as changemakers. In the next phase, they will be empowered as facilitators to conduct Oasis Life camps for students of government schools, especially rural ones across the state.

Yet another major initiative began in the Jammu division of J&K post fresh term in June. The master trainers from Jammu team conducted Oasis Jyotirdhar workshops for around 55 principals of government schools in Jammu district as a pilot. These principals, in turn, nominated lead-teachers from their schools as facilitators for students’ programmes. The master trainers undertook yet another series of Oasis workshops to first sensitise these teachers. Later, an Oasis team of facilitators from Gujarat reached Jammu to conduct Oasis Life Camp training and demo camps. Furthermore, the new facilitators independently undertook these 3-day camps to aid self-confidence of the young for nearly 500 students of 8th grade in Jammu district as a pilot attempt. The Festival of Life camp is scheduled to touch 5,000 students this winter through this team of new facilitators across the district of Jammu. This success run will then be replicated in other districts, especially KGBVs for girl child.

Similar initiatives in Kashmir division engaged 78 teachers for Life Camp Festival in April 2023, touching more than 1,500 students through 50 and more camps in Srinagar district.

Oasis Jyotirdhar workshops were also conducted by master trainers in Kupwara and Budgam districts involving 66 school principals. Similar to Jammu model, Life Camps are planned to reach 5,000 students, with special emphasis on girls from KGBVs and disadvantaged, tribal sectors through Saamarthya Project.

Another independent initiative was led by the young enthusiastic educators of Kerala State Civil Services Academy through two novel programmes for secondary grade school students. These are: Save Our Students — to aid prevention of unfortunate trend of suicides due to exam pressure — and Oasis Life Classes to boost their self-confidence and aspirations. More than 1,100 students benefitted in this process.

Under the aegis of Pay It Forward partnership project for NGO collectives, trainings were organised for NGOs at Odisha and Delhi NCR. 16 Life Camps were conducted, benefitting around 400 students. In Gujarat, more than 3,200 students were benefitted by 72 camps facilitated by 45 youths and adult trainers.

92 Young aspiring student leaders selected across 6 states of Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Delhi, Odisha & Gujarat through NGO partners participated in National Oasis Dream India Camp at Vadodara campus. Saamarthya Dream India Camp for 60+ girl-leaders from schools of partner Trusts in rural Gujarat was also organised to promote girl leadership in tribal regions.

Overall, the Oasis programmes could impact more than 7,500 young students through the fresh team of trained educators across India in the pilot phase 2022-23.

Sharing the holistic impact of Oasis programmes, B Yugandhar, a senior programme officer from Telangana Collegiate Department says, “This is the most life changing workshop I have ever attended. While it helps us prepare young Misaals (change makers) for the nation, at the same time, the adult educators also get platform to change themselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.” “This kind of education must be compulsory for all teachers and staff of education sector”, adds a BRC official from Gujarat.

The movement recently got an opportunity this October to showcase its scalable partnership model at the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC)-2023 Kathmandu, Nepal. It is now gearing up with a fresh adventure to share its life education programmes for teachers & students with interested alternative education partners in different countries across the world.

Oasis Movement deservedly won the Nexus of Good Annual Award, 2023 for scalable initiatives it has taken to transform the lives of youngsters in the country.

Views expressed are personal