Kadam was started in 2014 when we saw that children in India’s most underprivileged communities needed proper education. In the first community that we focused on, nearly 95% of families we encountered refused to send their children to government or private-run residential schools. This was due to the school being too far away or being unaware that were schools available. This left us no choice but to start a bridge school near where these families lived.
Kadam is registered as a Public Charitable trust in Hyderabad run by 25 friends in the IT and other core non-IT industries. Our official name is “Kadam Public Charitable Trust,” and the registration number is 30/IV/2014.
We have a grand vision of a better India — a vision that starts with local communities and their children as our future. Every child deserves the chance to dream big, and we’re here to make sure they have the opportunity to make their dreams a reality.
Our Commitment Towards Children:
- Education until graduation or until they’ve secured proper employment
- Daily breakfast and lunch at school
- Medical check-ups
- Medical resources, such as hospital visits and medicine when necessary
- Support and advocacy for their safety
We Provide Parents With:
- Medical resources
- Possible employment opportunities
- Free education for their children
Journey
In May 2013, when we drove past Lingampally railway station in Hyderabad, we noticed a bunch of street kids picking up rags. That area is known for a few “slums” where migrant labourers live. We stopped by to check where they were from, why they weren’t going to school and how they were making their living. There were close to 200 kids in total in this community who weren’t going to school, all between four and ten.
We were curious why they weren’t attending school because the school was only a kilometre away. When we checked with their families, they said that the school refused to take them. Further, they mentioned their concerns about child trafficking (citing that as one reason for not sending kids to school). Ragpicking also generates income, and if a kid goes to school, that income is lost.
We visited the area’s government school to check why they refused to take these kids in. As a government school, it’s their responsibility to identify kids in a particular area who aren’t attending school, enroll them, and put them through bridge school special training programs to be able to join the mainstream school system within 18 months. As it turned out, the school was too understaffed to take any more students and didn’t have enough funds to offer a bridge school.
Denying education to these children is a violation of fundamental rights (Right to Education), so we filed a complaint to Hyderabad’s education department. After receiving no response, we filed an RTI (Right to Information) application requesting the status of our complaint. We ended up enduring multiple appeals before finally getting a chance to meet the Director of Education. He agreed that what was happening was a violation of fundamental rights but would take a few years to fix. At that point, we had two options — continue to fight the system or start something ourselves. We decided on the latter.
We chose to start a school for street kids. To understand the realities of daily life for these children and their families, our team engaged in fieldwork between June 2013 and Nov 2013. This helped us understand:
- The families living in these impoverished communities.
- What they’re deprived of and their day-to-day survival challenges are.
- Where they’re most vulnerable.
- How many kids live there, and what their specific situations are.
- What are some of the challenges for these families to send their kids to school
Challenges
We saw two pressing challenges at that moment.
- How do we take these kids from streets to school?
- How do we sustain their interest in education once we enroll them?
To address these challenges, we planned to set up a bridge school in the existing Lingampally government school itself. But this school doesn’t have sufficient infrastructure or staff to support these street kids. We spoke to the District Education Officer (Rangareddy District), Rajiv Vidya Mission team and Headmasters of the nearby government schools and finally decided to start a Bridge School.
It took 5-6 months to find a building to use as the school, get the families to agree to send their kids to school, contact local law enforcement, and fill out paperwork. Finally, on April 25th, 2014, we officially registered Kadam as a non-profit charitable trust.
We reached out to the Director of Education who promised to support our endeavour and officially made Kadam school a non-residential special training center. On August 2nd, 2014, we were ready to accept our first 18 kids to our school, Rajiv Vidya Mission Non-Residential Special Training Center.
Initiation
Kadam Public Charitable Trust was formed in April, 2014 with the aim of providing free education to underprivileged children (beggars, scavengers, child labour) who have never been to school or have dropped off from school early on in life. Through the trust, we started a bridge school – “Rajiv Vidya Mission – Non Residential Special Training Center” in August 2014 with 25 kids and 2 teachers. Within 2 years, the strength grew to 65 kids and 5 teachers. Our school is a bridge school and we follow a curriculum called bridge schooling curriculum. Our aim is to bridge the gap in out of school kids within two years and put them back in mainstream along with the kids of their age.
Our Team
Our Partners
We acknowledge and appreciate all the support we have been receiving from multiple donors and organizations. This is to acknowledge some of our partners for their immense support.
Academic Partners:
Lingampally Government School
Website and Technology Partners:
https://www.intuitiolabs.com/
Healthcare Partners:
Dr. Lakshmi & Team
Our Vision & Objectives
KADAM is an imperative step towards shaping the future of underprivileged children. We believe if given a chance to study, every child can shape their future per their dreams. They can get a new perspective of respectful life.
- To provide free non-residential, high quality education to the under privileged children (beggars, scavengers, child labour) who have never been to school or have dropped off from school many years back.
- This initiative called the “Bridge School” aims to “bridge” the education gap for these ‘out of school’ or ‘drop-outs’ so that they are integrated back to main stream education within 2 years’ time, as per the provisions of Right to Education Act.
- We will also empower these families on all services (housing, health, scholarships, loans etc) that are relevant to them and provided by the government.
Transparency
We believe in transparency. As a non-profit organization, we must provide clear, honest records to all donors. Learn more about our costs and where your donations are going by reviewing our financial and regulatory transparency documents. When you become a donor, you can also access operational transparency records.
Financial Transparency
All our accounts are open to donors for audit. Please reach out to us if you would like to know how we are spending the money that we receive through donations.
Regulatory Transparency
We have all necessary government approvals to run a public charitable trust. If you would like to take a look at documentation, please reach out to us. We would be happy to share information.
Operational Transparency
We believe that it is every donor’s right to stay informed about the progress and success of the program that he/she is supporting. As a donor, you can review every student’s performance, grades, teacher’s feedback, etc.
Please contact us for more details.