Bringing education to poor children | Fusion - WeRIndia

Meet Sujata Sahu whose life changed with a solo trek in high-altitude, bone-chilling, barren Ladakh. While she was trekking, she saw two women teachers who were walking back to Leh from their school which is a journey that takes them a day-and-a-half of walk. They were doing this to get mid-day meal supplies and uniforms for their children. Sujata was impressed by their dedication. Being a teacher herself, she wanted to help poor people to make their school life easier.

They had minimum infrastructure and are struggling with the tough English-based curriculum. So, she along with her husband visited a very remote school Lingshed via a trek. At an altitude of 17000ft, there were children waiting for them. They carried books, clothes, sports materials, and a lot of other equipment for these children on the backs of 20+ donkeys and horses. This began the idea for 17000 ft foundation.

It took them one year to come up with a model to help the children in remote areas. The technology platform by Akshara Foundation, the Karnataka Learning Platform was a big breakthrough for them. The idea was to map out all the schools of Ladakh so that trekkers and travelers can find them on their trips.

This way, they could reach out to these villages and offer the help that was needed. The daunting task of helping remote villages seemed more possible with the inclusion of outsiders.

They received their first donation of set of 20,000 books by Pratham Education Foundation and 10,000 books from Scholastic India. That was a great success to the foundation. The foundation mainly focuses on improving opportunities for indigenous tribes of very remote and isolated villages of Ladakh. Their programmes also help local youth get income opportunities.

The foundation has three main initiatives:

MapMySchool – A technology platform which connects remote villages of Ladakh making it easy for outsiders to help.

The Yountan Project – A program to improve the education at these schools. They setup libraries and other infrastructure.

Volutourist@17000ft – A way for outside travelers to become volunteers of the foundation.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia