Every subject is essential. And everyone should have the right to explore them.

It started during the pandemic when Gautam Sir talked to us about his maid. She was concerned about her child’s education due to the onset of the pandemic and the shutting down of schools. So, she requested some help.

The government school’s online class was pathetic. So, she requested some help.

Our response was, why just her kids? We can support many other children as well.

You know, growing up, I loved painting. And since the seventh class, I have also taught it and the other subjects for free during vacations. So when Gautam sir asked about helping his maid’s children, I immediately said yes to joining him. And that’s how we founded our PURASKAAR.

Initially, we were only three volunteers and two kids. And now we are over two hundred people. We are helping students pan India, online and offline. We offer foreign languages, coding classes, conventional subjects and cultural classes like dance, music and drawing for the holistic development of the students.

But our approach to holistic development didn’t go well with the people around us. They were like, ‘ Ye dance, drawing aur language courses me kya rakha hai? Conventional course padhao.’ But we didn’t want to limit our students to conventional courses only. Students in the metro cities have easy access to unconventional courses. We want the same for our students. After all, every subject is essential. And everyone should have the right to explore them.

And our approach has worked well! When we were teaching online, there was a sort of demotivation in the class. Fortunately, I got an audio message from a student in the sixth class. He said, ‘Aap log free me itna ach kaam kr rahe hai ki humlogo ko bohot acha lg raha hai. Hum logo k yaha pe jo school hai, wo minimum whatsapp pe v kuch padha sakte the. But wo v nhi kiye. Aur paisa har tarah se liye.’ The audio message from the kid was a very emotional and touching point for us.

Let me share one more incident. One fine evening, Gautam sir got a call from a kid. He said, ‘ Maine suna hai ki aaplog bacho ko free me padhate ho. Mujhe v padhna hai. Kya aap mjhe padhayege? Sir replied, ‘Bilkul”. While inquiring about his background, he shared that he lost his father due to COVID-19, so he couldn’t afford education. The kid was quite surprised that we were providing free education. We feel proud to help him.

Currently, we are focusing on menstrual hygiene awareness through our project ‘Vartalaap’. In India, it is still considered taboo, especially in rural areas. We are trying to get our students to open up about it through one-to-one conversations. And it is working well!

Now, I’m the President and co-founder of PURASKAAR. Now we’ve people from IITs and IIMs. Not only students, but we’ve working professionals also. And we’re looking forward to growing in our mission of helping as many children as possible and giving them a Gift (Puraskaar) of education.

Heard about life coming on full circle. We feel it happened with Nikita

when she Joined Puraskaar.

Delhi Stories is an emerging platform to feature inspirational, motivational, relatable and beautiful stories. Do you also have an inspiring story like Nikita?

Share with us We’ll feature it Dil Se..