Guest Lectures:

Friday, February 20, 2009 : Guest Speaker
On 20th February Mr. Ayyappa M.Masagi oriented us about his great work of water saving, harvesting and knowing the value of water and water resource.. His vision is to make water efficient Globe. Thousands of experiments have been done for rain water harvesting by Masagi. He has been awarded for this work as an Ashoka Fellow and many other national level awards. This journey was started in 1994 by researching rain Water harvesting methods in his own farms lands. In 2005 he started WLF Water literacy Foundation to make Nation water efficient. ‘Harnessing our most precious resource (water) and bringing it to the people’ is the motto of WLF. He also stated that Earth has 25% land and 75% water, out of it only 2.53 % is fresh water. Out of 2.53% of fresh water 0.3% lakes and 30% is in ground. Main techniques those are being used for saving water are Recharge, safe, reuse and use efficiently. Related to water conservation he conducted more than 1200 programs in 8 states of the nation. Masagi believes in simple living and high thinking.

Guest Speaker Mr. Vivek Pawar
On 27th of February in my Deshpande Fellowship Program I attended an interactive session with Mr. Vivek Pawar, founder of Sankalp Semiconductors. Sankalp is one of the leading companies that design and manufacture chips and conductors for television, cell phone, digital camera, sound systems etc. Vivek formed this entreprise in 2005 in Bangalore and soon after one year it got settled up in Hubli at BVB Engineering College campus and became India’s first MNC that has its office in a college campus.He explained his life journey from schooling to M.Tech in electronics. He was an average student and not more serious about good marks always. He did schooling from a boarding school and engineering with electronics from Pune. His more interest was on television and it’s functioning. So he got campus placement in a television company late he joined Videocon. He soon got promotion as assistant production manager and did a record production of manufacturing TVs. He increased the production from 20 TV per month to 400 per month. But did not continue his job there he left his handsome job and joined M Tech for further study, there in a campus selection he got an offer in Texas Instruments (One of the best company in chip making) and placed in United States of America. His will power always pushes him towards success. On the bases of his will power he was cured himself after reaching up to third stage of cancer.
all DFP cohort 2 fellows with Mr. Vivek PawarDuring this session he gave many learning like; ‘Focus on the particular way where you can perform better and put all energy there in centralized way’. He told about ORIA (Observeà Reflectà IntrospectàApply/Action) that how to react on a goal to achieve that.
Meet with Mr. Paresh Choudhari Reliance in DCSE:

During his speech he appreciated social entrepreneurs. Around 100 audiences were presented in this moment.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 :Dr. J.K.Hiremath, founder of 'Manovikasa' started this organization in 1994 for special children (rehabilitation center for mentally retarded children). His daughter is the inspiration for starting this special school. She suffered from meningitis and died in the year 1994. This incident made him to run this school for special children. Dr. Hiremath visited Deshpande Foundation on 6 March as Guest Speaker and spent his valuable time with all DFP Cohort II fellows. He shared all about Manovikasa and his efforts.
Dr. Hiremath was working in an American organization resigned his job came to India & in 1994 he started a small day care center with two rooms from 10:30am to 4:30pm for mentally retarded children. This grew into a residential school by 2003.
Reasons for the development of mental retarded
Age of the mother
Mental & physical health of the mother & Genetic abnormalities
Mother’s addiction to drugs
Malnutrition
Half attempted abortion
Use of un prescribed drugs
Accidents & Epileptic attack by hormonal change
Forceps delivery (80%)
Alexia
Prolong delivery
Cesarean (2%) & Low birth
Functions of Manovikas
Being a neuro clinical psychiatrist Dr.Hiremath design the perfect residential arrangement for the mentally challenged children. He could also successfully design the activities of Manovikas. They are,
· Visiting the villages & building the awareness.This includes early identification, facilities available from the government, diagnosis & issue of certification.
· Convergence service. They have adopted 7 districts in Kanpur, each village is having some SHGs which helps in the taking care of the children, for this parents of the children are charged Rs2/-
· Upanayana. Here they train the parents as co-therapists. Different therapies will be given to the child. Like,
Hydro therapy
Sand therapy
Jump fit therapy
Multi sensory stimulation therapy
Squint correction therapy
Physiotherapy
Vita therapy
Speech therapy & Drooling therapy
· Special education system. Here level assessment of the children is done by check list. They follow the individual rehabilitation program (IRP), in which each child will be having its own curriculum. Basic knowledge like Time, Money, Writing name, Signature was taught to the students. For female domestic ability development program is also conducted. Music therapy, sports, yoga, dance is also part of the school activities.
· Residential service. They teach self help skills like, Toilet training specially reporting, eating, bathing, grooming, for female menstrual hygiene. They also take children for excursions.
· Achievements of school.
Gold medal in china in swimming
· Challenges face.
Meet the parents expectation
Rehabilitation of children in home
· Contact:Ph.-9243281756 e-mail:manovikasa@yahoo.com.