Showcasing talents of underprivileged children

Hyderabad-based NGO 'Aikaarth' helps underprivileged children explore their talents. This NGO was started by Pooja Agarwal, an ex-student of St Francis College, and the co-founder is Ruchi Agarwal.

This organisation has volunteers who go to various schools with underprivileged children and teach the children photography, direction (films), theatre, storytelling, chess, dance, arts and more, enabling them to explore their area of talent and interest.

When she joined 'Teach For India' as a fellow, she realised these underprivileged children needed a lot more than just academics and the potential that they have. "I felt the need to give them opportunities and education beyond the milestones of Class X and Class XII, and that was when I brought together people from my college again and that's how the organisation was born," says Pooja

"I started this as a project in 2016 when I was doing my Degree as a four-month project involving 121 students. We went to an orphanage and each of the 121 students hosted a workshop on a different aspect." she added

Thus, a project that was started on a college campus for the college students evolved to become an organisation that provides all the resources and opportunities to children from low-income communities to attain their fullest potential and excel in their ways.

Later the organisation initiated a well-structured fellowship programme that anyone could apply for, with a well-organised selection process. "This fellowship programme allows young talented individuals who are exceptional in unconventional fields, to be a teacher and teach extra-curricular activities to children from low-income communities in the most under-resourced schools," she adds.

However, running something like this is not without its challenges. This is mainly because of the education system that we have in place. Parents and school staff are usually of the opinion that academics is what is important and extra-curricular activities don't matter.

"That is one of the biggest challenges in running this as academics has the highest priority. We are yet to research how we can take our children from the stage of exploring their potential to excelling at it such that they can make a living through it," she concluded.