Volunteering
Learning Space Foundation (LSF) provides creative, innovative, personalized volunteering for urban students in schools, colleges and doing Post Graduate studies. Hundreds of International school students have visited us from Institutions such as DAIS (Dhirubhai Ambani International) and Jamnabai Narsee School over the years 2012-20. They have invested hours into the community by offering to teach or support the students of the local village schools.
Corporate employee volunteering has involved groups of corporate employees partaking in activities such as building a garden at a school, painting a newly constructed restroom for students and setting up a computer centre in a remote village school. From 2014 and 2020, students as well as corporate employees established fundraisers for education and sanitation projects at LSF. During the corona pandemic, LSF encouraged distance volunteering for students and corporate employees through online platforms to continue making a difference in rural education. There are some wonderful instances of volunteering offered to IB students that have enabled them to do amazing work for rural education, and take home a valuable certificate of excellence in volunteering.
You could bring to LSF a great plan of individual or group volunteering and discuss it with the team at LSF. Write to nitinorayanlsf@gmail.com or call on +919860132638 to join us.
A. Management Students and Company Executives from ISL, Japan
For the past 5 years, LSF has been supported by Think Education to usher students of ISL (International Strategic Leadership Programme), bringing 100's of young Japanese Management students and company executives, to participate in village developmental programmes run by LSF, and to interact with members of village community, especially the farming community. So far, LSF has hosted 7 different batches of the ISL students between 2014-2018, to villages in the Tansa River Valley, to preprimary and primary schools and organic farms as well as guiding the international students to build a perspective on rural development in India. These village exposure visits have been organized as full day/half day programmes that cover a pre-devised itinerary and schedule for deriving maximum exposure for the visiting students.
B. International Schools in Mumbai associated with Learning Space
Jamnabai Narsee School, Mumbai (JNS)
LSF associated with the Jamnabai Narsee School, Juhu, Mumbai in the year 2012-13 and the school's Principal (then) Mrs. Josephine Vas along with the founder of LSF, Mr. Nitin Orayan chalked out a day-long village volunteering and exposure programme for CAS students of 8th and 9th grade. These village visits were made during the Jan-Feb months of every year and the students visited the government run primary public schools in the villages around LSF in the Tansa River Valley area. The urban students devised teaching programmes for village students for classes 1st to 4th in English language learning and creative activity like dancing, storytelling, craft and others. At the end of the day, all urban students gathered at the hall of Learning Space center to interact and share the experience and learnings of the day
Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai (DAIS)
In 2014-15 LSF associated with the Dhirubhai Ambani International School (DAIS) for extending the same CAS volunteering opportunity to secondary school students, and many day-long visits have been conducted for a valuable experience of exchange between urban and rural students. The Xavier's College, Mumbai has also conducted visits of International student visitors from many countries to Learning Space in the past 5 years, where students from South Africa, UK, USA, Germany and other parts of the world participated in day-long programmes with beneficiaries at Learning Space, organic farms, preschool and primary schools, and enjoyed learning traditional art and dance forms of the native populace
C. Corporate Employees' Volunteering and Exposure visits to LSF programmes
LSF is associated with major corporate donors who have directed their Corporate Social Responsibility teams to not only align their objectives with LSF social work programmes and support them financially with annual funding grants, but also lead their employees to volunteer in the programmes.
In the past 5 years, major Corporate entities like the Deutsche Bank Ltd, Edelweiss Capital Ltd, Voltas Ltd, and others have sent their employees to sensitize with the village environment & community, as well as the LSF projects and their benefits in rural education and development. The Mumbai chapter of Deutsche Bank Ltd led a regional volunteering trip of their employees from all over Asia, especially Honkong, Singapore and Indonesia to the Learning Space programmes, and the organic farm over a weekend consisting of two days and a night's stopover.
D. Exploring the beautiful locale of Tansa River Valley (Eco-Tourism)
The Learning Space Trust office and Learning Center are situated on the outskirts of Mumbai city, in the pristine natural habitat of the Tansa River Valley, with its rich cultural heritage of mountain peaks, temples, shrines, lakes, nature trails, hot water springs, and a native community that has been living in the area for several generations over hundreds of years.
LSF has led many groups of students, social club members and Corporate employee visitors to the varied sites in the Tansa River Valley, as part of the Eco-tourism & exposure to the locale programme Here are some pictures of the beautiful nature surrounding and the local community, much of LSF’s mission to transform lives of children, youth and women of the native community.
Village primary public school students
Village primary and middle lever school near LSF Center
Classroom wall painted with environmental water conservation chart
Learning Space Center at Village Kelthan
Learning Space hall
The indigenous block for learning creative art and expression at LSF Center
The village well as main water source for community
The native children enjoying a monsoon evening
A local women's self-help groups conducting session on making home food products