Wednesday Foundation is a charitable trust a registered under the Mumbai Trust Act 1860. Wednesday Foundation is formed with the purpose of making an impact through research & initiatives focussed on education reforms for the differently abled community. We believe that as a society, we must assist those who are physically handicapped, blind, deaf, dumb etc (i.e. Differently Abled Persons) extending them all necessary support in general so that they can lead respectable lives.
Not merely a charity, we stand for change.
About the Founder
Ajinkya Potdar
Ajinkya Potdar is a Chartered Accountant & holds the Bachelor of Legal Science (B.L.S) & Bachelor of Law (LL.B) degrees from the Government Law College, Mumbai, affiliated with the Mumbai University.
He spent over a year teaching English to visually impaired students of standard 7 & 8 and developed his own methods of teaching English to suit the needs of the students. This sparked his interest to work in the field of education sometime in the future. He went on to form the Wednesday Foundation – A Charitable trust for the visually impaired & physically challenged.
Professionally, Ajinkya is the Co-Founder & CEO of the Maxplore Centre for Entrepreneurship – an Institute to promote entrepreneurship & entrepreneurial thinking in middle & high school students.
With a background in Ernst & Young’s M&A & Business Consulting team for financial Services, he portfolio included projects where he applied an innovative bent of mind bed-rocked on sound financial acumen. He helped in bringing about corporate transformation, implemented a greenfield architecture solution to tackle market risk and drew up business plans for micro lending and e-wallet solutions.
In a fast changing world with shifting job paradigms, he sees entrepreneurship education the key enabler to truly empower the next generation.
He works with National Association of the Blind at Mumbai & Nasik, and consults for local NGOs such as Sankalp Shikshan Sanstha for the Hearing Impaired on raising entrepreneurship awareness amongst the differently-abled.
Publications
Mentor & Research Policy Initiative Lead
Dr. Sanjay Jain
sanjay.jain@wednesday.foundation
Associate Professor, Director (Ph. D. Research Centre, ILS Law College), Research Guide (Savitribai Phule Pune University)
Ph.D. (Law)
Dr. Jain specializes in Constitutional and Administrative law. He has a total teaching experience more than 19 Years. His areas of interest includes feminist jurisprudence & gender Justice with special reference to Indian situation, Comparative Constitutionalism, Sociological Jurisprudence, Disability Rights Jurisprudence, Human rights of Marginalized groups, Legal theory and jurisprudence and International Economic law. He is recipient of the national award in “Employee Category” on the occasion of World Disabled Day in 2004. He is co-editor of the book “Basic Structure Constitutionalism: Revisiting Kesavananda Bharati”. He has participated in 15 International, 45 National, 47 State and 30 University/Local level Conferences, seminars, and workshops and presented more than 50 papers on contemporary legal and social issues.
Research Initiatives
Visually impaired students, denied opportunity to pursue Science Degrees manage to secure admission into Stanford & MIT in USA. Why did Stanford & MIT allow them? How did they teach them? Time for an educational curriculum review in India?
Are jobs the best way to provide employment to the differently abled? Can they not be self employed? Time for an Entrepreneurship Push through the ambit of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act?
Write to us at research@wednesday.foundation
Merchandise
Since I don’t want to merely be a an organisation run on “charity”, I figured I should raise the funds through sales.
Hence I thought of cashing in my hobby! These are acrylic paintings made by me on canvas boards. If you like the designs, I’ll be happy to make postcards, coasters or other merchandise out of them. If you want to buy the painting itself – each would cost you Rs. 2500, and Bonus Offer – You could have all 5 for Rs. 10,000!!
For details or Orders, write to me – ajinkya@wednesday.foundation
#itsmywatertreat
While stationary at a traffic signal, I offered a bottle of drinking water to a girl selling Christmas caps! I told her It’s My Water Treat!
Why? – because India does not have any adequate public drinking water facilities. Unlike developed countries, where there are public drinking water fountains, bottled water is the main source for safe drinking water in public spaces. So like the girl selling the Christmas caps, there are who report to work but do not have arrangements for drinking water? I’m talking about the people like the traffic policemen, the vendors at traffic signals, the public parking attendants etc, whose very offices are the roads and public spaces!
Started on 25th December 2014 in Christmas spirit, I urge all those who drive (or even those who don’t) to consider treating these people to a bottle of water!
Take a picture – Post it on Facebook with the hash tag #itsmywatertreat – Tag your friends and challenge them to treat someone to water!
Reach us
Write to us at admin@wednesday.foundation