CHILD LABOUR TO END CHILD LABOUR - THE STORY OF AKSHAR FOUNDATION

In the small village of Guwahati, Pamohi, situated is a school rich at its heart and culture, surrounded by a greener environment all around. Akshar Forum is an innovative school founded by Parmita and Mazin in 2016 who were passionate about working in the education sector. The school is built with the idea of tackling poverty and child labor with consciousness towards surroundings and the environment at its heart. 

The students of the school were once school dropouts who used to work in the factories for sustaining their families, used to smoke, drink and get into fights, and were trapped in the limitless cycle of poverty. Now, they study at the Akshar Forum and nurture themselves to be a leader and they not just study but also earn for supporting themselves and their families financially. Akshar Forum has an innovative model of education where they use child labor to end child labor. The elder students in the school are taught the lessons and concepts and then they teach the younger ones and serve as a one-on-one mentor support to the younger ones. In return, the elder ones get toy money or mock currency which they can use to buy things from school shops or Amazon. The students both elder and younger ones learn through experiential learning such as composting, farming, and landscaping to learn the concept of science, and carpentry to learn mathematics. Digitalized tools are used in the learnings too such as interactive lessons on the tablet etc.

Another innovative model of the school is its fee structure, the students pay plastic waste as their school fee. Every student has to get 15 to 25 plastic bottles and plastic waste in one week from their home. The students also collect plastic from 15 - 20 nearby houses and they use this collected plastic to make eco-bricks which are used for construction purposes of garden decor or wall or small-scale projects. Initially when they started this initiative the parents of the children didn’t support and community members also didn’t cooperate but now nearly 10,000 plastic packers come to the school every month. 

The model of the school has helped the students not just learn but implement the learnings in real life, hone leadership skills, and cultivate a sense of belonging and responsibility towards the environment and society! Huge shoutout to the founders for such starting such an innovative school!