Shape a Future

Help us develop beautiful learning spaces for 1 million children!

Support our campaign to develop safe, modern learning spaces for 1 million underprivileged children within 10 years.

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Here is the story so far!

In 2015, Go Dharmic launched its biggest campaign so far, Shape A Future, an ever-growing education project starting in India that builds and maintains libraries & learning spaces for students in underprivileged Government schools. By the end of 2017, we will have completed 10 learning spaces, benefiting 5000 children a year!

We need your help to build a further 20 in 2018. Our aim is to reach 1 million children within the next decade with safe, modern education spaces so that life becomes not about surviving, but about thriving. We are currently in the process of setting up a quantitative approach to our interventions in order to track the increase in literacy and student well-being that has arisen due to our infrastructure.

1. After School Learning Center, Guniya Lekh (Nainital, Uttarakhand)

You’ve probably never heard of Guniya Lekh, even if you are familiar with north India. In some ways, it isn’t vastly different from other villages. Nestling in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand, Guniya Lekh is a village with a small population. Quite a way off road, it hasn’t been exposed to the rapid development of its neighboring villages. The villagers mostly farm for a living. It has one school for all the children who live there. There are currently 40 children enrolled in primary school. Two teachers share the teaching responsibilities between them, with one of them commuting an hour and a half each way to school! The school itself isn’t big – a two room building with a small playground.  When Hanuman Dass first visited Gunia Lekh in 2015, he was taken aback at how many of the children have to walk very far across dangerous mountains to even get to school.

But what makes Guniya Lekh unique is the presence and drive of its Pradhan Sanjay and a wonderfully committed individual called Prema from New York. They want more for the children and they want to start this by providing an after-school space where the children can sing, dance, draw and be creative.  We have supported them with games, musical instruments, books, sports equipment and teaching support.

We want to support their dreams and those of the children of Guniya Lekh.  Our aim is to further refurbish the school rooms into warm, inviting spaces where children can express themselves creatively. We plan to do this by adding furniture, some storage/shelving units and maybe, a mural on the outside wall. If you would like to donate to this worthy cause and make the children’s smile a bit wider, you can do it here

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2. Library in Government Girls Middle School, Guna (MP), India (Completed June 2017)

Situated in a remote area in Indian state Madhya Pradesh, 220km from Bhopal, this school has more the 550 Girl students with poor infrastructure. Go Dharmic took the project on given the lack of funding the school has access to as well as the focus on female education. Completed in mid-2016, it gave us immense satisfaction to watch these children study with great joy.

We collected 100s of books from the UK and took them over, while our local team did an excellent job of renovating a disused space and turning it into a state-of-the-art library facility that we in the West would even be proud of!

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3.Library in Government Middle School, Alwar (Rajasthan), India (Completed March 2017)

Situated in deep terrain at the foot of one of the world’s most ancient rocks, The Arawali Hills, we took on this library and recreational space and made it our own to help more than 300 unprivileged children. Situated in one of India’s poorest areas, we completely revamped the existing space, painted the walls, fixed internal infrastructure and donated 100s of books.

Under construction:-

Here are the current projects that our team is working on.

1.Learning Space for Underprivileged at Acharya Narendra Dev Vidhya Mandir, Borivali, Mumbai (Maharashtra) India

This School in Mumbai needs a lot of work.  They have a wonderful team of dedicated alumini and a headmaster who feels passionate, but the conditions at the school are much to be desired.

We are currently planning to develop a learning space for the children in one of the rooms the school has allotted for us.  We will be providing the children with books both in Hindi and English for their appropriate age range to help foster a love for reading.  The children will also benefit from child-friendly furniture, sports equipment and games for them to enjoy.

We would also like to refurbish the toilets at this school and help the children to understand how to keep the toilets clean and emphasise the importance of personal hygiene.

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2.Government Middle School  Kushmoda village, Guna (MP)

Our second project in Madhya Pradesh is in Kushmoda village.  The school is a girls only middle school and you can see the hard floor that they spend their days on.  They have no library books, only school text books.  School is not a fun place to cultivate a love of learning but a place to learn very basic literacy and numeracy skills.  Help us change this and inspire confidence in these young heroines.

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3.Community learning Space, Chandigarh, India

Although happiness is an inside job, providing education spaces is a hugely important intervention for these children. It gives them a safe space to learn, to play and to grow, and to feel comfortable to explore ideas together. We believe that education is a human right, and we are doing everything in our power to reach our target of 1 million with the educational resources that they deserve, and we take for granted.

This slum location in Chandigarh is one of the poorest places I have ever been.  The people live with open sewage, garbage lies everywhere, and the water is visibly toxic.  The conditions are terrible. Despite all of this I met and played cricket with some of the happiest children I have ever met. These children deserve better. ~Hanuman Dass

These projects cannot be completed without your help. Please donate or volunteer for Go Dharmic now, and together we can change the lives of these children.

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