Give a poor child a chance at education

Jayesh is a young boy from a poor family in Mumbai. His mother abandoned him when he was two. He lived with his father and grandmother.**His father and grandmother were both alcoholics who fought constantly and did not look after him.** The neglect and unhealthy environment started to impact Jayesh. There was no one to cook for him or groom him. So he went to school hungry and disheveled. The problems at home also made him a distracted boy. The environment he grew up in confused him and left him feeling angry and rebellious. He disobeyed instructions and did not like to participate in class.When The Akanksha Foundation began to manage his school, **Jayesh received personal attention.** He began to stay after school to read and practice English. With love and support, he even grew **confident enough to face the challenges at home.**

The Akanksha Foundation works to impact the lives of children from low-income communities, enabling them to maximize their potential and transform their lives. The organization addresses non-formal education through the Akanksha center and formal education by initiating school reform through 'The School Project'. Kids enrolled in school are from 3.5 years onwards through 4 schools in Mumbai. They have adopted 13 English-medium municipal schools - 9 in Mumbai & 4 in Pune. Akanksha began with a simple idea to give less privileged children a place where to come and enjoy their childhood. Currently, Akanksha reaches out to over 4,000 children through these two models. With the formal school dropout rate of Akanksha enrolled slum children being under 5%, with 75% of their alumni going to college, the organization is clearly making an impact. Donate to this program to help kids from slums to break the cycle of poverty through education.

Shaheen Mistri started the Akanksha Foundation in 1991. When she was 18 years old she visited her grandparents who were in Bombay, and on that particular visit of hers, she saw the inequality in education between the private and the public schools. Vandana worked with the Boston-based non-profit organization Citizen Schools, an organization dedicated to changing the life trajectories of underprivileged children in urban areas, for four years. At Akanksha, she served on the team to create a blueprint for Teach for India, later moving on to manage the Beyond School department serving all adolescent children of Akanksha. In 2007, she became the Director of The School Project, launched to create a network of high-achieving schools within the government system. She took over as CEO in January of 2010. The Akanksha Foundation attempts to one day equip all students with the education, skills, and character they need to lead empowered lives. In 2015, The Akanksha Foundation was awarded the India NGO Award 2014/2015 by The Resource Alliance For setting and promoting best practices in resource mobilization accountability and transparency and In 2016, The Akanksha Foundation was awarded the Gold NGO Transparency Award by the GuideStar India Transparency