SOWN SEED: THEY SAID INDUCTION AND GAVE ME INSPIRATION

When asked why the name Vidhya Vidhai (VV), Regila Marinus, Co-founder of VV said, “a name that synonymously  meant ‘education’ is what I preferred”, and added that Ram Prakash, co-founder of VV, her college mate and her “just right“ husband wanted the name to be related to agriculture. Education is something you sow today and wait for the yield tomorrow. And there happened the name “VIDHYA VIDHAI” (Seed for Education). Just the way it sounds, they do seed it, literally, and that did happen to me. 

Walking into a villa, I was both curious and oblivious. I walked with greater expectations of being a newborn to the education sector. Vidhya, Cluster Transformation Lead and my colleague who’s certainly an extrovert shows up with Regi and greets me. She also gave me a good run through about Vidhya Vidhai’s vision and work so far in the School Transformation Project. Regi did a quick introduction with the team and gave a few documents to read on. It was a typical “first day at work” kinda day. I overly enjoyed the day because I had to go pack for the Induction program in Bangalore. Little did I know that I was heading to the package of overwhelming knowledge on Education as a cause and diffused system in Tamil Nadu. 

Preethi G, Cluster Transformation Lead, Vidhya Vidhai

The program schedule for the first day in Bangalore was to visit two different cluster transformation projects run by Mantra4change. Visiting both the schools in the clusters and interacting with the Cluster Transformation Leads (CTL)  filled my empty glass with all the basics of the cluster transformation program. Chandrapura cluster CTL conveyed all the struggles and success stories enthusiastically that he was so proud of the cluster’s progress in the past year. The very next day the whole team of CTLs presented their quarterly plans and received insights from the program team. The whole team effort and their support were visible in Mantra’s work culture. VV is highly fortunate to have been guided by esteemed mentors and I had a precious opportunity to meet them as well. Just utter words like school, children, education, teachers and they have a bunch of testimonials to motivate and keep us going. 

Vidhya Vidhai believes in a team effort and its integrity in the team allows sharing views and ideas on any happenings of the project. I could have undergone an induction program in Chennai without costing the organization but Regi and Ram made sure that the whole team is enriched with all the knowledge around the education system just the way how they got there and I am thankful for that.