By Chirag Sutar | Communications Coordinator
It took us, Atma volunteers, some time to locate the municipal school in Mumbai in which our partner organization Apni Shala was to conduct a workshop on life skills for children. And finally when we did locate it, we had to pass a garbage dump and carefully jump over an open sewage.
Founded by Amrita, Anukriti and Swetha, Mumbai-based education non-profit Apni Shala ‘leverages the power of stories, drama, games and art in schools to engage children in social and emotional learning’. And this is why Apni Shala is one of the 13 organizations currently enrolled into Atma’s Accelerator Program - it has a unique concept and it makes a huge difference in these lives! The founders, all young and bright women, could have done anything else, yet they chose to do something that adds value to the society they live in.
As soon as the children saw Amrita and Swetha, the co-founders of Apni Shala, they brightened up. It appeared that the children looked forward to this class. And why not? Students were encouraged to ask anything they wanted without being judged. Also, there were several fun exercises for children to loosen up – singing, dancing, drawing and collaborating to work together on specially designed tasks. But what was most interesting was that children were actually opening up, being themselves, sharing their doubts and learning how to communicate.
Amrita had been teaching children about how to frame research questions and to think scientifically through her many workshops. The discussion that day was fun in many ways. But also gave an insight into the minds of children and know what bothers them about the society. Apni Shala has been conducting these sessions for several weeks in municipal schools and it has helped many children.
Soon after our visit to their workshop, we heard from Swetha, one of the founders of Apni Shala. She had got back to us with a set of ‘research questions’ which children, aged 6-12 years, had framed in their mother tongue Marathi. It was a fascinating list!
Here are few translated in English.
(1) Why can’t we see air?
(2) Why does it rain?
(3) Why do people leave water taps open?
(4) What creates traffic?
(5) How were verbal abuses/profanities created?
(6) Why do women get raped?
(7) Why do humans drink alchocol?
(8) Why do people throw garbage in a gutter?
(9) Why do human beings remove trees?
(10) What came first – chicken or egg?
Atma’s Accelerator program has been providing expertise to Apni Shala for the last one year. In one year, it has become a non-profit which has hired three new staff members and was able to fundraise on its own. Apni Shala is much clearer about its vision, mission and work culture that it must adopt so that it influences even more children and local schools.
Atma, as a non-profit, provides expertise to education non-profits that promise innovation and on-ground impact, and Apni Shala encompasses the values and dedication we look for in an education non-profit. For us, only one thing matters – quality education for all.
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By Kinjal Shah | Resource Manager
By Kinjal Shah | Resource Manager
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