Society for Human and Environmental Development’ [SHED] and Smile Foundation have collaborated for an initiative aimed to provide non-formal education to children from the slums of Kalina in Mumbai city, Maharashtra.

About the Project

The curriculum to impart holistic non-formal education to disadvantaged children from slums of Kalina is designed in such a way that it not only strengthens their ability to read, speak and write but also inculcates in them a strong value system - so important to become responsible citizens later in life.

The project also has provision for taking care of healthcare and nutritional needs of children with regular health check-ups in Balwadis and pre-primary schools under the initiative.

Free mid-day meals are provided to all children under the project. Recreational activities and excursions at periodic intervals to broaden the horizons of children is an important component of the project.

Parents of the children are counselled on the need and importance of education in the life of an individual. Monthly parent teacher meetings are conducted to ensure that the parents of the children remain motivated to send their children to the school. The project also undertakes the responsibility of mainstreaming the children into the formal system of education.

About the Partner

‘Society for Human and Environmental Development’ [SHED] was formed in 1982 at Raj Bhawan of Mumbai with the wife of then governor of Maharashtra, Begum Bilkees Latif as the president.

The organisation has been working to spread a value-based education among the disadvantaged children in slums of Mumbai like Dharavi, Jogeshwari, Sagbaug, Andheri and Kalina.

The organisation strongly believes that pre-school, non-formal education should be value based and not just academically oriented as it is during this stage that the foundation for the future of a child is laid. Regular morning prayers, songs on communal harmony, national pledge, yoga, special sessions on Gandhian values thus form an integral part of curriculum besides academics at ‘Society for Human and Environmental Development’.

This imitative of Smile Foundation and SHED attempt to endorse the ideology - ‘Educate the child and transform the society’.