Forum Matters

“ The coming together of so many organizations with different approaches and pedagogies, yet with the common goal of changing the education landscape, is invigorating and a great learning experience at the same time.” – Gazala Paul and Rajul Bharti, Samerth Trust

“The week of the 5th of December was exciting, as we celebrated Samaaveshi Pathshaala’s fourth Foundation Day, and attended Wipro Education Partners’ Forum in Pune. There were changemakers from 100+ organizations, mostly early-stage ventures on a mission to transform education across India. From a seemingly lonesome journey over the last four years, where we hardly got a chance to meet peers outside Karjat, Maharashtra, Partners’ Forum gave us a brilliant opportunity to make good friends, network, explore the potential to collaborate, and exchange personal stories of building new ventures. From our conversations with partners, it emerged that working with the public education system and officials is an uphill task. However, it can be tackled with a bit of tact and determination.” – Nivedita and Ashok, Samaaveshi Pathshaala

“At the 20th Wipro Education Partners’ Forum, we saw partners come together to celebrate, and share their journeys and learnings with each other. We led a session on ‘Artful Thinking,’ along with two other organizations, where we walked everyone through ‘Puppetry in Action’. We shared how the integration of puppetry and visible thinking, emotions and ideas can help create something beautiful and worthwhile. Even when there is a lack of resources, one can still tell some beautiful stories through puppets. On the second day, we set up a small space for an exhibition to showcase our contextual cultural makers’ space, pictures of our puppet friends, and snippets from teacher training workshops. It was wonderful to see everybody’s reactions and thoughts, and receive feedback from them. We are hoping to see all the wonderful changemakers again along the way, if not off ground, then on the ground, and working our way up to creating change.” – Rahul Aggarwal, Swatantra Talim

“I was a part of Eklavya earlier. When Wipro Education Partners’ Forum began, we had set up Samavesh and our team used to regularly take part in the Forum. In recent years, it has been heartening to closely learn from the youth who are setting up new organizations. Even in the current edition of the Forum, we are getting a chance to engage in a relaxed setting with peers during morning and evening walks, over meals, etc. In some sense, the Forum has provided a space for ‘intergenerational dialogue’ where old and new friends can come together to learn from each other.” – R. N. Syag

“I have been attending Partners’ Forum since 2012. This year, with other partners, I facilitated a thematic discussion on ‘Literacy Learning in a Multilingual Classroom’. I shared our organization’s Whole Language Approach, which we use with children whose mother tongue is Gondi, Pardhi and Marathi, among others. It was interesting to address questions on how children can learn reading without learning the alphabets. I shared our experiences of using this approach, and we were able to convince some of them. These questions also helped us reflect on our work.” – Brajesh Verma, Muskaan