Project Vikas

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”  

                                 Jawaharlal Nehru, 15th August 1947

As a concerned citizen of this incredible country, it really disturbs me that even after being an independent nation for more than 73 years, we still haven't managed to awake India to life and freedom. 

The root cause is a miserably failed education system. A system that could not develop confidence in these voiceless communities, so they could fight together against the injustice. A system that could not teach empathy to the people in power, consequently, and unfortunately, making most of them deaf to the hue and cry of these helpless citizens.

The gravity of this situation magnifies exponentially in the rural education setup. The main reason is the lack of involvement of the families in the overall growth of the child. There are a couple of reasons – lack of ability, lack of intent, and sometimes, the lack of belief in the fact, that education is indeed a very powerful tool.

Project Vikas is designed to address all such issues which the students in rural India face. The goal would be to give a transformative learning experience to more than 200 first generation learners in this school in rural Karnataka. The project will focus on making the teachers and parents more empathetic towards the emotional and learning challenges. An Arts-based curriculum will provide the opportunity to develop community change-agents.

Tell us about the school

Kalkeri Sangeet Vidyalaya is located in a very remote village in Dharwad district, Karnataka. With the help of a successful Child sponsorship program, the school provides free academic, music, food and residential facilities to more than 200 kids who come from the underprivileged background. Around 90% of them are the first generation learners. The average monthly income of some of the families is less than Rs 5000

What is your plan?

We want to transform this school into a source of community development. We have a three-stage plan to execute this idea:

Stage 1: Assessment and Support

• Topic-wise extra classes so that weak students from different grades can learn together
• Intense classroom observations and one-to-one discussions with the teachers in developing a deeper understanding of their challenges
• Designing a process of a constructive feedback mechanism for the teachers and student

Stage 2: Trickle-Down Effect

• Developing master trainers in the school
• Field visit for teachers and students to different organizations to give them a first-hand exposure of best practices, and supporting the teachers to integrate the ideas in their classes
• Developing a culture of an Arts-based curriculum

Stage 3: Self-Sustainable Model School

• Master trainers will conduct quality training for the teachers and senior students
• Senior students (mostly girls) will conduct capacity building sessions for the parents 
• Students will design an Arts-based curriculum to spread socio, economic and political awareness in their communities

Cost per child: INR 6500 per year (annual increase~ 15-20%)

Total Children: 230

Duration of the project: 3 years

Cost Heads:

• Professional services:
• Full-time/Part-time employees
• Interns
• Teaching aids
• Props and aids for arts-based learning
• Music instruments
• Field visits for teachers and students
• Research
• Content development
• Workshops for parents
• Programmes for community development
• Travel, food, accommodation 

There is no minimum amount for your support. Every drop counts. 

What is our vision?

Our vision is to develop and promote a culture of an Arts-based curriculum. We are not limiting my imagination to teach only concepts, but taking it a step further.

Imagine there are a couple of hungry plants who are searching for food. We provide them with water and sunlight, and they start burping. Sounds cool, right? But, we don’t want to stop at just teaching photosynthesis. We want them to act and show society what happens to those hungry plants when someone feeds plastic or harmful chemicals to them. We want to create a Greta Thunberg in every school in this country!

An Arts-based curriculum will be instrumental in spreading awareness about government policies/schemes. We will save hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising campaigns.

Education, that enables future generations, to become active agents in community development, will truly awake India to life and freedom.