A&K UK Office Donates Books to AKP-Renovated School in India

By Sukeerti Raikwar, AKP India Coordinator

INDIA | The second largest populated country, India has many pockets across its length and breadth where children lack access to basic reading and learning opportunities. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018 published by education non-profit Pratham shows the prevalence of learning deficit and the poverty of basic reading and arithmetic skills among students in Indian schools. The quality of the learning level bears directly on India’s future workforce, its competitiveness and the economy.

Most of the schools (both aided and non-aided) that run in lower income groups have reading corners or a provision for a library but unfortunately, space lacks books and, sometimes books are locked in a shelf, unavailable for the children to easily access.

We are very grateful to the staff of the A&K UK office for their efforts in donating books for the library at Kacherawala school on the outskirts of Jaipur. 34 children across grade I – V, will now have easy access to 320 books ranging from stories in English and Hindi, basic arithmetic, alphabets, numbers, folk tales and moral values. Children have a dedicated period for the library every week, and now having access to many books will make them utilize the time and, enhance their learning in the best possible way.

The Kacherawala School recently completed renovation of its building facilities, thanks to the support of AKP and a generous A&K guest. With the help of our partner NGO, we identified gaps and the work was carried out in the holistic way, with the involvement of community. The school lacked basic facilities of functional toilets, had broken boundary wall, leaked roof, no electricity, no veranda outside of classrooms which led rainwater enter the classrooms. Since the school has been remodeled, we can already see an increase in happiness quotient of the children and parents, who otherwise would not have thought of having access to school with decent facilities and learning space.

We look forward to sharing updates from the school opening ceremony. Stay tuned!