Best Practices
Starting of a Livelihood center “Jeevandhara Kendra” for empowering girl students in collaboration with Sambhav Foundation a CSR initiative of L’Oreal
Starting of a Livelihood center “Jeevandhara Kendra” for empowering girl students in collaboration with Sambhav Foundation a CSR initiative of L’Oreal
Ramniranjan Jhunjhunwala College caters to the marginalized section of the society. More than 50% students are female. Many of them are from the minority community. Through mentors and counsellors, it was realized that they did not have much support from family members and coupled with this the girls are also academically average. Remedial programs, better communication skills through English speaking classes, computer literacy did not show any measurable results. Its human to look presentable and business of beauty is ever increasing. L’Oreal is a multinational company well known for its work on women empowerment. Beautiful beginning a CSR activity of L’Oreal which they conduct through Labornet and Sambhav Foundation, an assessing agency recognized by National Skill Council. The center is now known as Livelihood center (Jeevandhara Kendra).
The major problem is to provide space for a beauty center and a class room for conducting classes. Scheduling of timings for this new initiative without compromising with their academic schedule. Security of girls specially when they are sent out for internships. Initially the girls common room was but was a short lived for several reasons. Finally, when the terrace was covered for solar panels the space below that was identified for the beauty center. The center catered to only our students but we soon realized that we need to extend a helping hand to the women in the society, so the enrolment was opened for all.
Girl students who are pursuing undergraduate studies and mainly from arts and commerce streams are screened for their economic background those belonging to income group less than 50,000/ per annum are chosen in a batch of 25-35 and in a day two batches are trained. The college has provided with space, free water and electricity, infrastructure like chairs, computer, white board etc., L’Oreal provides them with all consumables of high standards, non-recurring items like reclining chairs, mirror, all equipments for beauty treatments. The training is of six months’ duration of practical and theory and are sent for internships. Attendance is monitored digitally. An examination as per requirements of National Skill council is conducted and they are awarded certificates. The program is running successfully for last one decade. Pandemic did not deter us from continuing with this program so training was provided online for two years and from 2022 things have bounced back to normal.
Students have successfully completed the course. Girls are more confident, and they look presentable. Many of them are placed and some of them are entrepreneurs who have started their own parlours. The trainers also provide training to students for special occasions. These students present fashion shows and help in all our cultural festivals of the college. This facility is now extended to other females who are not studying in our college but are economically challenged. As an institution of higher education this is our small way of giving back to society by empowering the women. The initiative was presented to IMC Ramakrishna Bajaj Quality Assurance as making Quality happen and we won the second runner up prize under the category of Best practices in Educational Institutions.
The academic year 2022-2023 had visitors from L Oreal who interacted with the students for gap analysis. They expressed their satisfaction and expressed their gratitude to the Institution for all the support rendered We had two surprise visits wherein the Team L’ Oreal Paris visited our center on December 14, 2022 and April 12, 2023 and interacted with student’s trainer, past students came and shared their experience success stories. On 29th May, 2023 the team from L’ Oreal and Accenture visited the center and appreciated the college for this unique initiative. The team was accompanied by the founder of Sambhav Foundation Dr Gayathri Vasudevan who has empowered many women. All this has culminated in establishment of a center in our college for advance global training in Hair dressing.
The main problem was security of girls. CCTV are installed in the terrace and supervisory rounds are taken. Establishment of infrastructure required funds which is provided by the management. All electrical bills, maintenance on a regular basis is taken care by the college.
Reading room facility for students in the college
Reading room facility for stdents in the college
To create an ambience of joy of learning by providing a safe haven for students of our college as well as from the community to study
- Provide an ambience for reading and encourage reading habits among the youth
- Space constraint in Mumbai city, students living in slums, noisy neighborhood, family issues, shared washrooms, problem of basic facilities at home.
- To create a space where students study peacefully, make new friends, peer teaching- learning.
- Encouraging students to achieve their goals is in line with Institutional mission.
Our College timings are from 6.45 am to 6.30 pm. The MA, M Com and CMA classes are held in the evening. After classes rooms are to be cleaned and kept ready for the next day morning classes. Planning for cleaning and maintenance was done to allot two classrooms. The main challenge was security of the students since the reading rooms are open till 11PM on all days which includes Sundays, holidays, vacations and even festivals like Diwali, Eid etc. Two classrooms are allotted to the boys on the third floor or on second floor. For girl student’s bioscience laboratory is provided in view of the security and proximity to college office and girls common room. One support staff of bioscience department is available till 11PM In addition, few staff involved in housekeeping are available till 10.00 PM. The entire premises and these rooms are under CCTV surveillance and there are two trained watchmen who take supervisory rounds.
The reading room facility is mentioned on the college website and students approach us with a request. They are our own students as well as students from other colleges. Students approach to avail of the reading room when they are pursuing professional studies like engineering, medicine, preparing for competitive examinations, MPSC, UPSC etc. For the students preparing for CA, CS, Cost accounting it’s a favorite place since they can also discuss and learn from each other. The reading room has gained popularity among the students. Those who have availed the facility come back to just spend some time and go back down their memory lane. These students are well placed and share their nostalgic memories. They also express their gratitude to the college for providing this facility. Students make a formal application, and they are provided with an Identity card to enable them to use the reading room. This facility is provided absolutely free of charge. Students are provided with well-ventilated rooms with proper lighting, clean filtered drinking water, clean washrooms. Newspapers are provided to students who are preparing for competitive examinations. The reading room was kept open when the lockdown was relaxed during the COVID Pandemic by following all safety measures as per protocol. The method of granting permission from manual form filling has become digital and student can scan the QR code for form. They are issued an identity card for entry.
The reading room is a popular place for students who have a desire to study and excel. Almost every day there is an application for the reading room. A sense of bonding develops among the students, and they learn to share. The reading room provides the desired ambience for reading in the era where television, social media, mobile have replaced reading. Reading habits are dwindling, this is one effort to encourage reading habits. Students preparing are very focused and they can study without being disturbed. They have completed their desired program and some of them have excelled by achieving ranks in the examinations.
The main problem is to locate rooms for reading room. The Governing Body and authorities had to be convinced due to inbuilt challenges like security and discipline. The supporting staff must also be involved otherwise the practice would have been short lived. Students were counselled to maintain discipline and cleanliness. For cleaning the rooms given as reading room, housekeeping staff had to come early so that before classes begin in the morning it would be clean. No additional financial resources are needed except a positive attitude of everyone in holistic development of youth by providing the resources for development.
