Indus Action commissioned me to make a story on this amazing 40 lakh grant that they have to offer to anyone with relevant experience who can commit to work for 3 years for getting underprivileged children to schools. I asked them if there was someone who had already received the grant? They said yes. I suggested we tell that person’s story. They agreed. This is that story. This is Saleem’s story. What exactly did Saleem do with 40 lakh rupees? How do you get underprivileged children to schools? Watch it spread the good word about the grant! Thanks!
Category: Schools
FSG India recently commissioned me to make a video-story on one of their amazing programs that is enabling a nation-wide sustainable transformation of affordable private schools (the lower rung schools in cities where low-income households send their children to). I travelled to Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai for this story, where I interviewed school owners and principals, children (who study in such schools) and their parents and several private players in the early childhood education sector, who for some reason or other, had hitherto never considered selling their innovative teaching modules to such schools, but are doing so now!
India truly needs such initiatives. I am excited that I get to witness such efforts first hand. If you liked this one, you should also watch the story that I created for The Education Alliance earlier – about a similar transformation, but applicable for Municipal schools of Delhi.
This is the story of how a 7 year old startup is changing the way students decide to choose their careers. Although I was commissioned to make this story, believe me when I say this – had I access to something like this when I was growing up, I would have made better career choices in life! 🙂 Share it with especially those in class IX to XII.
Millions of children in India suffer from speech impairment, resulting from various conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome etc. But there are only a handful of speech therapists in India that can help these children (unlike say USA). A bunch of Indian geeks are finally using technology to address the problem and it’s beautiful to see the impact – how when you give the tools to communicate to these children, they can express a lot!
This is the story of how a non-profit is transforming government schools in India to as good as private schools. I was commissioned to do this story last month. It is heartening to see an organization working towards improvement of government schools because if what they are doing can be scaled up, it will have a huge impact on the quality of learning that the majority of children in India have access to. I wish them all the best.
I hope this 3 min story encourages parents, teachers and all of us grown-ups to realize that there are a lot of things that we need to learn about child sexual abuse, if we truly want to create an environment for our children, where they can openly report and fight abuse. To learn more, you can go through the links that I have compiled here.
I have known Nikita for few years now. When I met her last year, I was glad to note the kind of work that she was doing. In November 2014, I decided to see her workshops on prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, for myself so that I could create a 3MS from it. The actual workshop with parents was for over an hour, and then there was a separate workshop with children; my video story only shows a glimpse of that. Nikita and School of Life continue to conduct such workshops in schools and other spaces. The world needs more such people, and School of Life, other such organizations (and individuals working in this area) need all the encouragement that they can.
Acknowledgements:
- Nikita Gupta for the story lead;
- School of Life and its members (including Nikita) who conducted the workshop that I shot for this video;
- My best friend Anshuman – for assistance during the shoot (and for always being my host every time I visit Delhi);
- Princy, my wife – for assistance in editing (it took over an year to finally get this edited; and if I hadn’t asked Princy for help, it could have taken longer; the actual editing time was only 3 days though);
- The Sixth Element School for allowing us to shoot the story in their premises;
- The parents and the teachers who participated in the workshop (and especially the couple who we interviewed separately);
- Ankit Vatsa, Nimit Jain, Nikita Gupta and Ashwini Joglekar for the feedback on the first cut and suggestions to improve the overall video-story.
Amrutash, my batch mate from IIT Madras, left his lucrative job to start a library business which failed to get the desired readership. Naresh, also my batch-mate (we shared the same hostel and wing even) joined theater after IIT, but realized he could not make enough money from that.
It is amazing to see how today, both Amrutash & Naresh have joined hands to create a successful business that is solving a problem almost every school faces.
This 3MS is their story and what they do and how schools are loving them.