It is erroneous to believe that learning is limited to the page count of textbooks. Learning, in effect, happens through a crossover of reality with our lives. The sounds we hear, the images we see, the texture of gravel beneath our feet – you don’t get such knowledge through words written in pages. But it is precisely this knowledge, which makes us. It defines our roots, the way we negotiate with a place, a sense, or an experience.
I am reminded of being captivated by the dialogues of the block-bluster movie Sholay before I actually watched it. I imagined it before I actually saw Sholay. Learning, therefore, is experiential and immersive. Knowledge is, the articulation and analysis of such experiences.
These insights lead to our core innovation of a Sound Box with Sampark Didi creating magic in 76,000 schools today by igniting imagination in 7 million young minds.
Sampark Foundation was founded keeping in mind this essence of learning. In recognizing that a child is, after everything, a child. Children not getting quality education, or skipping school, or dropping out after a few months or years- is the effect of a system that confines them, not the cause. The cause, rather, is that children in India still work in fields, work at construction sites, and they come from backgrounds that are economically fragile and demanding. How can we expect them to have any interest in attending boring unimaginative schools other than for mid-day meals?
Our vision is clear- we want to bring about a transformation in the way primary education is perceived in India. We believe we can make going to school an exciting, immersive experience- a journey of imagination and possibilities. And this is precisely what we tried to do in the last few years by working with 76,000 primary schools in the states of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
In the next few years, I am sure you will be witness to this transformation- one of the world’s largest- driven by Innovation, Imagination and Interaction; without which any kind of education cannot sustain.
