You can be a beacon for the children of UP!

10-year-old Yash hails from the Lakhera village in UP’s Jaunpur district. Like other students, Yash understood his school to be a place where he went to study. But his teacher changed his perspective forever.

In 2022, Yash and his classmates discovered that the well near their school had been brought to the same level as the road after extensive construction activity. The thought of someone accidentally falling in was very frightening and every time Yash saw the well, he felt helpless because he belonged to a poverty-stricken community that couldn't afford to fix the problem.

Shivam Singh, his teacher, had been a part of Foster & Forge’s Fellowship Program - having been introduced to their design thinking approach, he brought Yash and his classmates together to think about how they could solve the ‘कुआँ’ problem together. 

“FnF taught me that my students ‘निपुणता’ doesn’t just come with academic learning. Yes, these children need to be literate, but they also need to have the life skills to take charge of the issues that their communities face. They need to have the self-belief that they ‘can’,” he remembers.

Shivam Sir gave Yash and the other students first-hand exposure to how the village panchayat works and worked with them to compel the Panch Pradhan to divert some funds towards closing the well. After much campaigning and conviction from the students, the community rose to the occasion and addressed the issue. The well was fixed and raised to a safe height, thus ensuring that the children could access their school safely and without fear.

“I loved being able to talk to my village and explain the problem to them. We may just be children but with Shivam Sir’s help, we were able to make a difference! I now know that when we see a problem, we can step up to solve it!” says Yash. 

This is what we, at Foster and Forge, work for - our mission is to enable government school teachers in the most rural and remote parts of India to reimagine their classrooms as empowering spaces where students learn and practice active citizenship. 

With children under 14 comprising 30% of India’s population, we are a young nation with immense potential. Uttar Pradesh, in particular, is one of the youngest states in the country but also one where such potential often goes untapped. What can we do to transform them from being a part of ‘generation nowhere’ to become active, responsible citizens who can effectively contribute to India’s socio-economic development?

That’s the challenge that we, at Foster and Forge, have set out to address but we cannot do this alone.

We need your help to scale our impact - empower more teacher leaders like Shivam to equip students like Yash with the life skills they need to rise to their truest potential. Your generous contribution can help us reach 120 more government school teachers in UP and impact the lives of over 6000 underserved children. 

No amount is too small and will go a long way in making a significant difference in the lives of children who need it the most. Let’s come together to create a brighter future for India’s children and enable them to become responsible citizens of our future. 

How do we do this?

Our program runs a two-fold intervention where a 2 year long fellowship for teachers in Government schools empowers them to become teacher leaders and drive long term change towards the whole child development. 

Our impact:

With our work in the state of Uttar Pradesh, we have empowered more than 3000 teachers to reach over a lakh students in the government schools of Uttar Pradesh. This year, we are also running one demonstration site each in Gurugram and Sitarganj block of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand.