What We Do – VSM Thane - Charitable Educational Trust for Children

About Us

Vidyadaan Sahayyak Mandal, Thane (VSMThane) was founded in 2008 by a small group of like-minded people who wanted to help the needy and deserving students who were unable to continue their education due to a weak financial position. VSM quickly realized that in order to truly nurture these lives, they would need to give emotional as well as 360-degree support rather than just sponsoring academic fees.
“Quality of help was chosen over quantity, as the MANTRA by VSM founder members.”

Our Mission

Empowered Students, Empowered Nation.

Our Vision

Enable needy and deserving students to pursue the education of their choice and help them realize their potential
Inculcate values such as self-sufficiency and sensitivity towards society in students to help them become responsible citizens.
Encourage active participation from all sections of society to contribute to a better world.

VSM Model

VSM coined the term “KARYAKARTA PALAK (KP)” literally meaning “VOLUNTEER PARENT” or in short a “MENTOR”. VSM innovated and developed a unique “Mentor-Student” model in order to support every student enrolled, with around the clock guidance, to become financially independent, responsible citizens. With the help of this Model, each and every student is taken care of by a mentor, who keeps in touch and communicates with the students on regular basis. This helps in getting timely updates of the students, be it the grades in exam, participation in extra-curricular activities, attending VSM events, getting to know any academic or personal difficulties faced by the students and addressing same with timely interventions. This regular communication helps create a very strong bond wherein the mentors become an extended family member and guardian of their ward. This unique VSM model with personal, focussed approach ensures an all -round development of each and every student.

VSM grooms the students academically and holistically, by conducting various programs throughout the year which includes specific career guidance, soft skill development, goal setting, communication skills, social camps sponsoring, Be Frank, mock interviews etc. All this is done with the ultimate aim to see the student develop into an independent, self-reliant, socially sensitive and responsible member of the society.

Our Intiatives

Our Financial Governance

VSM operates primarily from the funding received from its donors and is very proud of the fact that majority of donations are from individual donors who have been with VSM since its inception. The trust and support extended by donors and well-wishers are the major assets along with the force of dedicated and untiring volunteers.

At VSM, we maintain complete financial transparency and strive our best to utilise donations to support students’ educational activities helping them to realise their dreamsof completing education and becoming self-sufficient.

Less than 5% of donated funds being spent on administration/operations

Education Expenses – 95%
Admin Expenses – 5%

Our Partners

Our Team

Our Guiding Star

BHAU NANIVADEKAR

A notable personality in Thane, Bhau has inherited the legacy of social work from his father and retired voluntarily at the age of 60 as a Mechanical Engineer.
Bhau and some of his friends visited Baba Amte’s ‘Anandvan’, ‘Hemalkasa’ and were impressed by the work they saw. The thought of doing something for the society laid the foundation of Anandvanasnehi Mandal in 2003. While doing this, Bhau and some of his colleagues were helping as much as they could, for the education of needy and deserving children. This led to a humble beginning of Vidyadan Sahayyak Mandal (VSM) on 15th August 2008 at Shahapur. Bhau coined the unique mentoring concept of Karyakarta Palak (Volunteer Parent) in holistic development of the student. Bhau deeply inculcated the values like strive for excellence, transparency and continuous improvement mindset in VSM culture.
Honoured with ‘Thane Gaurav’ award by Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), Bhau’s presence at the age of 88+ years truly serves as a guiding star for VSM

Managing Committee

Geeta Shah

Resident of Thane, marketing professional with 20 plus years of experience. She is actively involved in Anandwan Snehi Mandal, Thane along with other reputed NGOs such as Goonj, SOSVA. She is one of the Founder Members of VSM.

Nivedita Joshi

Resident of Thane, has worked for more than 22 years in the field of Accounts and currently working as Tax Consultant from her Ghatkopar office. Nivedita is working with VSM since January 2013 in the capacity of a volunteer as well as Donor.

Sandeep Bhagwat

Resident of Thane, has his own manufacturing unit of electronic items. He works in the capacity of Volunteer, Mentor as well donor and is associated with Vidyadaan Sahayyak Mandal since 2011.

Dr. Narayan Ponkshe

He has 28+ years of experience working for a Multinational Company in Quality Assurance and Development. He got associated with VSM in 2013 and is a part of “Performance Evaluation Committee” which monitors, and compiles data related to the student performance.

Subodh Jathar

Resident of Thane since 2011, he is a Pharma Marketing Professional with over 35 years experience of Sales, Distribution and Marketing of Indian pharmaceutical products in overseas markets of Asia, Middle East, Africa & Europe. He has hands-on experience of social work at Yusuf Meherali Centre, Tara, Panvel in his early years. Having joined VSM in 2013 as a Mentor; he is also a member of VSM’s Projects, Media & CONNECT teams.

Aditi Pandit

Aditi has done her MSc(Electronics) & B. Ed & initially worked as a lecturer. She has 20+ years of experience as an entrepreneur in data processing field & has worked with American, Canadian & French companies. Associated with VSM for last 6 years, started working as Mentor, followed by taking up the important responsibility as the Coordinator of VSM Pune Branch. She is a member of project team, mentor for Be Frank team & lead for Media Team & Arts career guidance team.

Pramathesh Navalekar

Pramathesh is a resident of Thane & an Electrical Engineer by profession. He worked for 36 years in large Multi-national organizations in the areas of Project / Program Management & retired in 2017 from a Large IT organization. Joined VSM in Oct. 2018 and is currently responsible for all the various activities related to the large number of VSM Alumni. He is part of the core project Team & active member of the fund-raising activities during the Ganapati festival.