Sunbeam

Their objectives are:

• To oversee the holistic development of underprivileged children – their psychological and educational needs.
• To motivate and empower the community to be responsible for the overall development of their children.
• To make Sunbeam intervention a programme of transformation rather than service delivery – with clarity on withdrawal strategy so that the community can become independent and self-reliant.

They currently run centres in Worli and Bandra, with teachers and volunteer support. Their programmes are as follows:

• Bridge Courses: Sunbeam conducts bridge courses for children in the age group of 5-10 years who are not up to the desired academic levels of the class they are in, at their formal school, or for those children who have never been to school before. Suitable education training is imparted to enable them to join the mainstream by ensuring direct admission to classes based on their age and aptitude. Those children who are in the 10th standard, or in college, are enrolled into professional coaching classes and their parents pay a certain percentage of the fees (as per policy) towards these classes.
• General Batches: General batches comprise of those children who are at the required academic level of the class they study in, at their formal school. Over 90% of Sunbeam beneficiaries are now attending General Batches.
• Formal Schooling: Sunbeam tries to ensure that children in their centres are integrated into mainstream/formal schooling systems. They have tied up with municipal schools near their centres to make it easy for students to avail of their facilities.
• Recreation: Sunbeam organises camps, games, activities like rock-climbing, and excursions to places of interest of the children - milk colony, post office, biscuit factory, Esselworld.