The main purpose of this report is to provide the updated details of âExplore program 2020â & the final results of this program.
(The information contained within this project update will likely seem to have changed from what was proposed initially as the project progressed. While change is both certain and required, it is important to note that any changes to the initial project plan has been impacted by one of three critical success factors: Available Time, Available Resources (Financial, Personnel), or Project Quality and obviously the COVID 19 pandemic .
EduLift was set and prepared to start âExplore Program 2020; Exploring Himalayan Art and Cultureâ from April 14, 2020, but because of the COVID pandemic situation, we had to pause this program for a while and redesign it, to be conducted virtually as the âsafe optionâ for our participants and for the EduLift team.
Sure conducting an online program in Nepal is a challenging task, with unscheduled power cuts, unstable internet connection, participants with very less resources and of course uncertainties. So this time we had to mentally prepare ourselves and launch the very first virtual program of ours, with a detailed plan for each and every session and a backup plan of course. And with this, we also conducted everyday online meetings with the whole team and discussed the everyday’s session in detail so that we could minimize the possible threats.
It is important to highlight here that the program objectives have surely not changed but there has been an adaptation of a different methodology for the program implementation.
EduLift focused on âwhere the students were, where these students needed to be and where they should have been by now.â (if this COVID situation was not to have happened)
Our everyday sessions were designed to be time effective and productive and most importantly to raise the self-esteem of the students who were/are highly affected by the uncertainties that are ahead of them.
For the virtual Explore program, we were able to bring in 22 regular participants for our everyday session of which we are really proud.
We sure had the target of having 25 participants and did have registration from 29 students but some of the students had to go back to their villages as they did not have their residence in Kathmandu, and as we are aware that the villages in Nepal has very limited infrastructures, limited access to mobile phones, let alone have the internet facilities; so sadly these students were not able to attend the online sessions with us.
And with the 22 regular participants, EduLift was successful in conducting the virtual Explore program using the social media tools; Zoom and Facebook.
The EduLift curriculumâs Explore Program is a nine week long program which is deeply influenced by the concept of 21st century skills ; critical thinking, problem-solving, social-emotional skills, collaboration and team-work, and creativity. This is in consonant with global educational reform movements, which are privileging teaching and nurturing of skills over the traditional focus on content or knowledge. The strategy for Explore Program can be summed up in three distinct categories of Explore, Experiment and Exposure.
Overall Program Objectives:
- Developing intellectual skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, source analysis, as well as social-emotional skills and social responsibility through group discussions, problems solving, researching and regular interaction.
- Nurturing important performance characters such as curiosity, creativity and collaboration and enhancing studentsâ linguistic skills, particularly the oral-communication and reading writing skills through blogs and poetry.
- Exposing students to global themes and topics such as environment, technology, health, social impact and entrepreneurship and ensuring exploration of these themes through hands-on practical projects.
- Ensuring the online exploration of different themes be done through virtual practical projects which includes case studies, cultural arts reviews, creating and managing virtual social campaigns, research projects, virtual trips, and facilitating relevant and useful conversations with peers and relevant outsiders.
- Introducing guest speakers for further networking and mentorship opportunities.
- Conducting group and one on one career coaching for the participants through Zoom breakout sessions.
