NEWS: Positively MAD empowers charity in India 01 Jun 10

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Recently Positively MAD was asked to create bespoke training events for the ‘Right Now’ Foundation which works with at-risk children and teachers in rural India.

Based in Tamil Nadu, the charity was set up to help those children at risk of being forced into child labour, or who work for a living collecting rubbish around slum areas. It has set up and runs a number of homes for children with HIV and those living in dire circumstances.

The charity  provides training for teachers to help make learning more meaningful and engaging. Together with the State Co-ordinator for Child Labour in Tamil Nadu , the Foundation hopes to implement ideas, methods and techniques to improve the quality of teaching and learning in local schools.

After hearing about the good work Positively MAD has done with thousands of schools across the UK, a representative of the Right Now Charity approached us with a simple request: could we provide training for him so that he could take back some of our effective teaching and learning techniques?

The answer was a resounding yes. Corin Mitchell, the Regional Manager who organised the event, felt that there was much alignment between the charity’s objectives and our own company ethos.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to make a positive difference to the learning of students beyond our own borders,” he commented.

Stewart Botting, the representative from ‘Right Now’, came across to the Isle of Wight for 2 days of training and was delighted with what we were able to offer.

Trained by Alan David Pritchard, Mr Botting was shown and experienced a range of memory improvement techniques that allowed him to retain far more than he first anticipated.

In addition, he learnt about the power of pupil-questioning and the importance of teachers asking the right questions to accelerate learning. He was also shown how to plan lessons according to Bloom’s Taxonomy and Howard Gardner’s theory of the multiple intelligences.

Additionally he experienced the power of regular review and the importance of being in the right ‘thinking gear’ to approach different learning. Mind mapping and reflective practice were also part of the two day course.

“I am so excited by all this,” he commented afterwards. “I feel motivated and empowered. I plan to spend time with my core team back in India and work together until we have mastered these skills and found ways to make them culturally relevant, with the correct means of translating it into both Tamil and Telegu mediums.”

Mr Botting plans on creating an ‘effective teaching and learning’ centre, a hub from which to disseminate the good techniques and learning skills he experienced while with Positively MAD.

“I also plan,” he added, “to trial these techniques in a number of different places once I have trained the key staff:  a slum night school, children's homes during their additional tuition classes, and a few National Child Labour Schools.”

All of us here at POSMAD would like to extend our very best wishes to Stewart and his team as he continues his good work to make a positive difference to the lives of the children in his care.

He has assured us that he will keep in touch – so watch this space for future details on how he is getting on.