Help us do what we do.
“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
We are an NGO, but not the kind that gives ‘fish’ to people. Not that there is anything wrong in being that NGO, in fact, giving material goods/support to those who need it urgently is undoubtedly noble work. And no, we are not even the organization that teaches people how to fish. So then what is it that we do?
Well, we work in the field of education. It is clear that education is not about giving something to someone. While it can be partially about teaching someone how to do something (like solving maths problems, reading, writing, etc.), that still doesn’t explain the entirety of what education is (or ought to be) about.
Just ask yourself, despite knowing so many things, and possessing so many skills, how much do you really understand about the world you live in and your relationship with it, or about your own day-to-day life- all the little or big decisions that you dread taking on a daily basis, all those dreams and regrets that don’t let you sleep? Haven’t you felt all your life that something important is missing? Something that if you had it, would perhaps allow you to live really differently.
I have!
Well, perhaps something that is missing is the “right education”. We have all had some kind of education- formal or informal and in different ways. But how many of us can say, hand on heart, that we have had the “right education”?And what is the right education anyways?
Right education is about learning not just what to think or how to think, but also learning how to see.
Right education is not just about learning some templates, theories, or ideologies that tell us what to do, but rather about learning what it means to act intelligently in any given situation.
Right education is not just about learning how to earn more, but about learning the art of living itself with all its complexities and problems.
Yes, that’s what we try to do. We curate spaces where all those who are concerned about the right education be it teachers, parents, village communities, or officials can come together and inquire, question, think, reflect, feel, express, and learn from each other. We don’t tell them what or how to think or act, we simply create spaces and facilitate dialogues and discussions. The rest, the people can figure it out on their own. We trust their intelligence, their ability, and their intentions.
And we do this in hope that one day, in our classrooms, the adults will similarly learn to trust the children, give space to children to feel, to think, to agree, to disagree, to question, to dialogue, to remain silent, to really learn.
We do this in the hope that one day all education in our schools and beyond, will be the right education.
And we need you to help us to do what we do.
— Ankush Jindal
Donate here:
For donations in India: https://bit.ly/GivetoSanjhiSikhiya
For donations outside India: https://bit.ly/GiveSanjhiSikhiyaUSA
