Swashikshan launch

The much awaited launch of national body of homeschoolers is here! Swashikshan – Indian Association of Homeschoolers was formally launched on July 14, 2012.

The launch event included formal launch of the logo and the website and key note address by Urmila Samson, a well known person in the homeschooling community. Other speakers of the launch event congregated at a central location in Mumbai and proceeding where shared live with participants from all over the country.

The first session of the event discussed the idea behind Swashiskshan, its vision and goals, formal structure and the way ahead. The speakers of this session were Urmila Samson from Pune, Navin Pangti from Gurgaon, Nikhil Trivedi from Mumbai and Dr Mathew Peedikayil from Mumbai. The speakers also requested participants to join hands and form voluntary teams to take up Swashiskshan work and initiate new activities. And in doing foster an independent “movement, away from a system that no longer serves us, taking full responsibility for our own and our children’s learning journeys.”

The second and third sessions of the launch event focussed on sharing experiences. Some of the families who have chosen the alternate path shared how it all began, the initial days, challenges and opportunities. Speakers also talked about unschooling, parenting, socialisation issues, etc. The speakers for these sessions were Poonam Kurani from Mumbai, Claude Alvares from Goa, June Mendez from Lonavala, CK Shah from Goa, Alice and Rajesh Lele from Mumbai , Priya Desikan from Chennai, Hema Bhardwaj from Pune, Dola Dasgupta from Delhi, Divya Tate from Pune and Supriya Joshi from Mumbai. Transcripts of these sharing sessions would soon be available on this site.

All the sessions were well attended by participants from Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa, Chennai and many other locations. A lot of hard work went into organising this first event. A wonderful day ended with the anchor thanking –

• Dola Dasgupta, Urmila Samson, Hema Bhardwaj, Divya Tate, June Mendez… who shared their experiences and also specially came to Mumbai for this event
• Priya Desikan for being most active and enthusiastic about everything – taking initiative to shoot and send her video
• Navin pangti for the logo and the website
• Navin Pangti along with Dr Mathew Peedikayil for their inputs in forming the first session
• Nikhil Trivedi for accommodation
• Shilpa Trivedi for her wonderful interactive surprise session
• Dhananjay for technical cor-ordination and tiring mock sessions along with Nikhil
• Malvika though of a learning age – for her enthusiasm in learning and organizing the technical setup

The anchor also thanked

• Urmila Samson for being inspiration for all – for introducing us to some great resource persons
• Claude Alveres and CK Shah, special guest speakers, for their wonderful talk. Both of them came all the way from Goa for this event
• All the people who promoted the event by sharing the link or otherwise
• All those who clicked ‘going’ as RSVP and attended
• All those who did not click and still attended
• and Mumbai homeschooling community for being a wonderful host and organizing this event

We look forward to organising more such events, offline as well online. And once again, thanks to everyone who made this possible!