SIP Academy India endeavours to make a difference to children’s lives not only through its programmes but its unique CSR initiatives as well
Children are the future. If you invest or empower them, you are working towards a better tomorrow. This enrichment and empowerment of kids with essential life skills is what forms the philosophy of SIP (Sociable Intellectual Progressive) Academy India’s core business and social initiatives. Started in August 2003 with a vision to significantly impact children’s holistic growth, SIP Academy India Pvt Ltd is an ISO 9001:2008 certified organisation and successfully runs different world-class programmes through their partnership with various international organisations. Designed for children between the ages of four to fifteen, the company’s various programmes are aimed at improving the child’s thinking, learning, creative and communication skills.
A firm believer in the philosophy of Nelson Mandela that “Education is the most powerful weapon through which we can change the world”, Dinesh Victor, the MD of SIP Academy India says, “At SIP India, we understand that each kid is unique with potential to be a winner.” He adds how SIP’s belief has always been to develop programmes ‘Keeping the Child in Mind’. Hence, the company follows the fun learning methodology, which ensures the objective of making the child achieve excellence not only in academics but in other walks of life as well.
The company’s flagship programme — SIP Abacus and Brain Gym — is said to help in developing concentration, confidence and visual memory, while the Global Art programme focuses on enhancing creativity and confidence. AMAL is aimed at accelerated learning and improved social skills, while Mikids looks at better English communication. Today, SIP Academy India has benefited about 3.5 lakh children in over 700 Learning Centres across 19 states and union territories.
According to Victor, “By enriching and empowering young children with essential life skills, even though we cannot build the future for our children, we will be able to ensure we can build our children for the future.” SIP was recently awarded for its outstanding services and contribution to the education sector and received the “Best Coaching Institute in Skill Development for Children in India” at the Fifth Asia Education Summit 2015, on 25th March 2015, at New Delhi. And while the company has achieved a lot of success in terms of enabling and empowering students, giving back to the society has always been a motto since the beginning of its operations.
In 2004, the company tied-up with an NGO Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children, which provides early intervention services for children (six years or below) with mental retardation, development delays and other associated disabilities. Using its Brain Gym programme, the company trained a set of teachers at the Centre, to help train 140 special children in a couple of special exercises, which help in increasing their attention span.
Later the company also worked with an NGO Tulir Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA) for running awareness programmes for its employees, students and their parents. Over the years, the company has worked with different issues such as organ donation (in tie-up with Mohan Foundation), swine-flu awareness campaigns and tsunami relief work.
The big challenge, however, came in the form of the falling sex ratio as indicated in the Year 2011 Census. It brought about a change in the company’s CSR goal. “It shook us into action. We were extremely concerned since this will have serious ramifications for our society in the years ahead,” says Victor. Keeping this in mind, SIP Academy India adopted an initiative on “Respect the Girl Child” as their core corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the next five years. The company tried to approach the issue in two ways: first, direct education to needy students; second, addressing the social factor — the reason a girl is not respected in Indian society.
“Today, while we see a lot of development both economically, financially and a better gender equality, there are many areas in the Indian society where a girl is still discriminated against. She is considered to be a burden or an expense, while the boy is perceived as an investment or an income-generating asset,” explains Victor. According to him, this is the area where they want to bring about the change through their CSR goal.
Taking this forward, the company initiated a campaign: a pledge for the parents of a boy child — “I will not take dowry”. The drive for this initiative was based by the reality that parents of a girl child have to give money and gifts as dowry due to social pressures. “In the prevalent socioeconomic realities, most parents find their hands tied to get substantial money for dowry. In a majority of cases they end up carrying a lifelong burden of loans,” he says. To create social consciousness, SIP Academy introduced a “pledge card” that parents can sign on and vow not to receive or demand dowry for their son’s marriage.
The success of the first initiative encouraged the company to start another one in 2013. The new campaign was for the parents of girl child; a pledge card saying “I pledge to support and respect my daughter in her choices relating to higher education and career.” According to Victor, many SIPians and its franchisee partners took the vow and signed the pledge card. Within the organisation, SIP Academy India focused its approach towards developing numerous confident and enterprising women in various roles such as course instructors, LCLs, master trainers, area heads, state heads and employees. The idea was to not only transform them, but to make them the “change agents” to transform society.
In Chennai, SIP Academy India is also supporting the education of 58 girl children to ensure they complete their studies at Sri Ramakrishna Mission Sarada Vidyalaya Girls’ Higher Secondary school. While most companies focus on providing scholarships to the brightest students, SIP Academy India chose to concentrate on the academically poor students. “We found that not only do these girls come from poor backgrounds, but due to their poor grades, they are at a higher risk for dropping out. If we could sponsor their studies, there was a less risk of them dropping out due to parental and economic pressure,” says Victor. While SIP might not have achieved an immediate success in improving the grades of these students, what holds the fort is the drastic change in the percentage of girls not dropping out, which spells success for this pilot initiative.
According to Meenakshi, headmistress of Sarada Vidyalaya, the company also provides refreshments to these children during special classes conducted after school hours, since these students don’t have a congenial atmosphere to study at home. The students are happy to receive the evening refreshments after eight hours of school, which energises them to study further.
One of the success stories of this initiative, Banupriya, the school topper in 12 standard (scoring 1169 marks out of 1200), is now pursuing BCom and CA in one of the most reputed colleges of Chennai. Her aim is to seek good employment and raise her family status by supporting them. According to Victor, even though these are small initiatives and the company has not gone all out in expansion mode, they know the model is good. “We are happy with the lives we have impacted and the girls are more motivated to come to school,” he says.
In the future, SIP Academy India is planning to have more awareness campaigns and also has an ambitious plan of extending the Sarada Vidyalaya pilot success to other parts of the country. As Victor sums it up, “One idea, one teacher and one child can change the world. Our journey will continue to impact a million minds.”