The Avinya Scoop

Me: Thank you for coming for the interview. We are happy for you to enroll with the Avinya Academy Bandaragama. Here are our enrollment details, why don’t you take some time to think it over and we’ll have a chat with your parents too.  Student: I want to join now. Me: That’s wonderful! Let’s go up and chat to your parents too. Student: Ok. But I want to join now. I really want to join Avinya please. Imagine the feeling you get when you hear this keenness, excitement, enthusiasm and sheer interest all rolled into one. Imagine you are the teacher who gets to have this student in your class. Imagine the difference you can make in that student’s life! Just imagine. I didn’t have to because my heart skipped a beat and I felt so moved as I could see the look of hope and faith our latest enrolled student gave us as we walked up the path to speak to his parents. These are the moments that our passion for what we do is reinforced! “The need is great and so are the opportunities to make a d...

“ Thank you for being kind! ”  This is a phrase many of the parents said with beaming smiles as they left after their child had finished their interview with us this week.  “ It’s great that you are helping Sri Lankan students! ”  “ This is a great project! ”  These are some of the other ideas they shared with us as they left. It left the whole team deeply moved and motivated to keep aiming for our goal! As you can guess from the above, this week, we had another fantastic time with our prospective students down in Bandaragama. We can’t tell you how wonderful it is to meet and spend time with each and every one of them. Learning more about the likes, dislikes, interests and understanding how we can better help and support them in the next step of their life’s journey has been both eye-opening and so fulfilling. We had a range of students who were interested in all three of our vocational streams: IT (Software Developer), Healthcare (Nurse assistant/ Caregiver) and Hos...

This week's blog title is us in six words.  As Sanjiva always keeps reminding us - who is this all about anyway?  The students, of course! This week has been all about the students. It’s been a personal highlight and I’m sure for many in the team as well. On Tuesday, we headed down to Sarvodaya Institute of Higher Learning to conduct interviews for the first group of shortlisted candidates. The whole team was buzzing with excitement and clearly so were our potential students as they arrived way ahead of time with enthusiasm, keen interest and hope! We had an incredibly fulfilling time for lack of a better word speaking to these potential students, finding out more about them, what interests them and why they hoped to follow a vocational education pathway after their O Levels. It was so touching to see the hope in their eyes and the potential for change that we could make in not only their lives but their families and communities.  It was wonderful to meet the parents of t...

  The Path to Building Trust Let me start this week’s blog with a story.  It’s been sometime since I’ve been in the classroom, but I distinctly remember the students I have taught and have accumulated my own treasure trove of memories. I think these hold a special place in every teacher’s heart.  Let me tell you briefly about one of these stories. I was teaching a group of young learners. Their ages ranged from 9 to 12 years old. It was a class I’d had for over a term and I knew most of the kids. I walked into the classroom on the first day and greeted everyone and then I noticed one of the kids under the table.  She was new.  The other kids were all looking bewildered.  In my head, I told myself (yes teachers talk to themselves all the time!) to not highlight this, so we got onto our first task. While the other kids were busy with that, I crouched down and invited the new kid to join one of the groups. It took awhile but I managed to convince her eventuall...

“If you're opening a hot dog stand, you could worry about the condiments, the cart, the name, the decoration. But the first thing you should worry about is the hot dog. The hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary.”   Jason Fried What am I on about you may wonder? Since when does Avinya focus on hotdogs?  Do not be alarmed, we haven’t shifted focus to be the best fast food chain in Sri Lanka :) Our hotdogs are  our students  and they are definitely the epicenter of everything. That's been a theme this week. It is important to constantly remind ourselves of this. In anything we do, what is our epicenter and why are we doing what we are doing? If it does not make sense to our epicenter, then we shouldn’t really be doing it! It’s that simple. Other than me thinking about hotdogs :) we rode into this week  on the crest of a wave - a wave full of press releases, admissions and social media hype! We were so excited that we were finally able to share wi...