With many pressures of livelihood on the family continuing education beyond high school is often a challenge and students often have to leave behind formal education and join the work-force soon after. While academic education is the primary goal of school curriculums, many students and parents from under-privileged backgrounds hence value and appreciate life skills that can have an earning potential in the future.
When some of the girls at GJC Peenya expressed a desire to learn tailoring at school (learning from classes outside was unaffordable and outside their means), their headmistress approached us with a request to donate a couple of machines to the school. While some of them hoped to study in the future and do this for supplementary income, some others looked at it as an opportunity to join a garment factory.
While we were ourselves skeptical, the demand was from many, and hence we decided to set-up a complete tailoring unit in a spare room in the school. While the initiative faced initial funding challenges (as it was an unconventional infrastructure for a school), with the help of a corporate donor we were finally able to fulfil the request of these pragmatic girls.
The classes conducted by a dedicated craft teacher always saw highly enthusiastic participation. From an initial batch of 18 girls the numbers increased to 40 girls and was expected to rise further.
While we hope that every child can realize their academic potential, we appreciate the challenges of their lives and are grateful to them for having guided us to create a meaningful infrastructure and for their enthusiastic participation in the same.