From the Founders' Desk
Hi,
Do you feel that your child is talented in a
particular field?
Do you always wonder how you can groom your
child's high talent for excellence?
Do you wish someone told you how to go about doing that?
If the answer is yes, then you have reached the right place.
Children with exceptional academic or non-academic abilities are known as gifted children. Since there are no ‘Gifted Identification Programs’ in schools, many children remain unidentified. Even for those children who may be spotted as ‘different’ by parents and teachers, not much is done due to lack of awareness of appropriate resources and activities. The education system, which is designed for average students, is not challenging enough for the academically gifted children. Children gifted in sports, fine arts etc. are also neglected since academics overshadows everything else. The net result is a sheer waste of valuable national talent.
Early identification of gifted children is necessary and grooming them for excellence is an involved process. Finding the right resource at every stage of development is the key. Swanand Foundation helps parents and teachers in this process. Though we provide individualized guidance to gifted children, Swanand Foundation is not a ‘Career Guidance Centre’ in the conventional sense. Our guidance is free of cost, but, we welcome donations so as to be able to extend our services to gifted children among the underprivileged sections of the society.
We hope that the information on our website as well as the activities of Swanand Foundation are of some help to you. Your suggestions and comments are most welcome. So, read on.
With warm regards,
Yours sincerely,
Swatee & Anand Bapat.
Background
Identifying and Handling Gifted Children
Giftedness is widely distributed across any population, irrespective of socio-economic background. Gifted children may have special talents in one or more areas like mathematics, music, dance, dramatics, leadership, sports etc. Some children may display exceptional talent in a particular field, but may be deficient in other areas. Identifying giftedness is a specialised job and there are many instruments to do that.
If identified early and provided with appropriate avenues, gifted children can transform their talents into superior achievements. Otherwise, they may remain underachievers and may face intense frustration for life. So, special efforts must be made, both at home as well as at school, to ensure their proper development. Their inquisitiveness must be encouraged and efforts made to satisfy their curiosity. They must be given adequate privacy and space to pursue their special interests. They may be exposed to accelerated learning without over-burdening them with expectations. Parents should take specialized guidance for handling them in an appropriate manner.
Genesis of Swanand Foundation
Dr. Swatee and Col. Anand Bapat identified the giftedness in their own children early. Over the years, they put in consistent efforts to nurture their gifted children, gathered a lot of information and shared it with other parents. Even in an education hub like Pune, they felt a distinct lack of appropriate information about avenues to groom gifted children and they could well imagine the plight of the underprivileged in rural areas. Therefore, they associated with a few parents of gifted children and founded a not-for-profit NGO, Swanand Foundation.
What is Swanand?
Swanand could literally mean "the source of happiness from within oneself". We believe that people, whose occupation matches their field of interest, enjoy their work and are usually happy. If children with exceptional talent get to do challenging work in their field of interest, they would not only be happy but would also achieve excellence. Therefore, happiness would beget excellence and excellence would beget happiness. Swanand Foundation aims to tap the wellspring of happiness within all the highly talented Indian children and to optimally harness the national talent pool.
Objectives
To realise its dream of becoming a world leader, the Indian government is undertaking many measures to develop its human resources. They include ensuring basic education for all citizens, initiatives for research in basic sciences and promotion of all forms of art, literature and sports. To further these efforts, there is an urgent need for Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to strengthen the hands of the government by identifying talented children in India, and nurturing their talents towards excellence.
Our Vision
To be a national nodal centre for honing young talent, so that they become the torchbearers and lead India to the zenith of the new world order.
Our Mission
At Swanand Foundation, we shall strive to reach out to gifted and talented children across India, provide them with guidance and resources so as to enable them to reach their fullest potential.
Our Values
- We shall strive to make the pursuit of excellence affordable to all Indians.
- We shall work across the narrow walls of region, religion, caste, gender and status.
- We shall put the national interests above all else, always and every time.
Our Objectives
- To identify talented children from all socio-economic strata and to address their unique needs.
- To conduct awareness sessions for parents and teachers to help them recognise talent early and to nurture it.
- To spread awareness in talented children about suitable careers across disciplines.
- To help in developing appropriate strategies for education of gifted children.
- To provide need-based assistance to talented children from underprivileged classes.
People
Founder Members
- Mr. Shashikant Supanekar
- Mrs. Asha Supanekar
- Col. Anand Bapat
- Dr. Swatee Bapat
- Mrs. Amita Hasabnis
- Ms. Asilata Bapat
- Mr. Aniruddha Bapat
Members
- Mr. Chandrashekhar K Kolhatkar
- Mrs. Seema C Kolhatkar
Our Associates
- Dr. Bharat Oswal
- Dr. Bina Oswal
- Mr. Digambar Patil
- Mrs. Asha Patil
- Mrs. Swati Patankar
- Mrs. Vandana Singhal
- Mr. Niranjan Toradmal
- Mr. Aditya Degala