Our Founder
“Education is the key to designing a strong and progressive nation. What begins as elementary knowledge for students in schools, sets the base for the future for the upcoming generations. Education has the power to shape our mindsets and navigate us through challenges to find better solutions thereby, accelerating the growth of a society and in totality, the nation. Education frees us from self created limitations. With this thought in our hearts, Ankur was born. To ensure the right to education is imparted to every child of this nation.”
Kumari Shibulal, Founder & Managing Trustee – Ankur
What is Ankur
The Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives (SFPI) launched program, Ankur in July 2004,with the key focus to promote philanthropic initiatives for their various education programs in India.
‘Ankur’ meaning a sapling, was ‘bloomed’ from the conviction that quality education is the cornerstone of all developmental progress. The varied programs aim at making education accessible to children from different strata of the society and thereby, ensuring consistent and quality education throughout the process of the schooling of a child once he/she enrols with Ankur.
We believe that every child has the right to education that enriches the mind, builds character and broadens horizons through knowledge. It is the mission of the foundation to make education accessible to children from different walks of life.
OUR MISSION
OUR VISION
Our Value System : R-CARE
Our core values that guide the choices we make on our journey toward our vision are encapsulated in the acronym R-CARE (our care) is our culture that binds together our staff, students, management and all stakeholders.
RESPECT
RESPECT
CREATIVITY
CREATIVITY
ACHIEVEMENT
ACHIEVEMENT
RESPONSIBILITY
RESPONSIBILITY
CARE
CARE
Excellence
Excellence
Our Four Pillars
At Ankur, all our endeavour revolves round four pillar postulates,
Safety and Security
We ensure safety of children at all times. Therefore providing the sense of feeling secure and creating a supportive environment are our prime focus.
Emotional Well-being
As emotional well-being contributes toward physical and cognitive health, we have a layered approach that centres around ensuring emotional wellness and happiness quotient of children
Academics Support
Today’s edification of children leads to tomorrow’s contributing citizens of our nation. Thus, we invest in building academic and intellectual abilities in children that enables them to achieve and excel not only today but prepares them to embark on to the real world tomorrow.
Personality Development
We design our interactions and engagements with children to provide an enriched and enabled environment.The objective is to mould children as fine human beings to imbibe attributes and inculcate being a responsible person endowed with communication skills, social skills, critical thinking skills, team spirit and problem solving skills and most of all being kind, compassionate and humble.
Our Approach
Ankur makes a difference by being a professionally run and process driven organisation with regular meetings to plan ahead. All processes are well documented with charts, forms, checklists and all monetary transactions are transparent and periodically audited. Detailed files are maintained for the academic, medical and extra-curricular records of each child, along with behavioural patterns, and dashboards of reports.
Our Culture
Efforts are made to maintain cultural heritage in children. Festivals are celebrated in the hostel. Equal importance is given to all religions and children are free to follow the faith of their parents. Morals and values are taught through stories. Plays are enacted by the children at the weekly programmes in the recreation centre to reinforce these values in an atmosphere of fun.
Journey So Far
Today the project Ankur comprises of :
Born out of the conviction that quality education is the cornerstone of all developmental progress in society, the trust was registered in July 2004, and is based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The focus of the trust is to promote philanthropic ventures in the field of education and research.
It does it through its Comprehensive Residential Education Scholarship program called ‘Ankur’ for children from underserved backgrounds and its socially inclusive school
The Samhita Academy which aims at providing quality education in an inclusive environment by enrolling both children from ‘Ankur’ and others from economically privileged backgrounds.
Today, the project Ankur comprises,
- A residential boarding setup functioning as a part of The Samhita Academy school
- Support is extended to students residing outside and studying in other schools and in PUC
- Facilitation and mentoring support is offered for students who have moved to college
In the Words of Ankur Alumni
