Samskriya Foundation is a registered Public Trust focused on empowering children through providing them effective access to learning.
At Samskriya, our highly motivated team takes forward our philosophy of reaching effective low cost learning to a large number of children.
Vision
To enable universal access to quality learning for all children
Mission
Samskriya Foundation believes that every child has the right to a good education. The foundation works with schools to create effective, low cost, scalable learning programs that serve children from under privileged backgrounds, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 that aims at ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
What we believe
We at Samskriya Foundation believe that every child has the potential to learn well.
We find that when learning becomes fun, when it is exciting, children tend to be eager to learn more. In such a learning environment, children will find school an adventure, education an exploration—it is no longer a chore or a burden for them.
We take children on this voyage of discovery by focusing on meeting their learning needs through innovative low-cost learning solutions.
And by encouraging the use of different types of intelligence in their learning process –
- Spatial
- Kinesthetic
- Linguistic
- Numerical
- Musical
- Inter and intra personal
Our Story
Concerned by the lack of quality education available for less privileged children in India, Sandhya Jaichandren set out to make her own contribution to the cause of education by providing children better access to learning.
She initially bought colourful story books with Indian content from various bookshops and donated the books to libraries in government schools. Middle School children loved the books and eagerly read them. Their only constraint was their poor reading skills.
Encouraged by this response, Sandhya Jaichandren established Samskriya Foundation as a Public Charitable Trust in October 2013, to help ensure that quality education is accessible to all. She inducted educationist Purni Krishnakumar as Co-Founder of the Trust and Montessorian Charu Karun joined the team later.
“Read-A-Way” Libraries
An early initiative of Samskriya Foundation involved translating English storybooks into Tamil language books and having them co-published with leading publishers like Pratham Books and BPI Publishers. The Foundation also worked with Pratham Books as an anchor customer, to bring out more books in Tamil so that students could comfortably read and enjoy books in the language of their choice.
A large number of storybooks were distributed to around 100 schools in and around Chennai, as well as to numerous villages.
“Steps to Success” Primary Schools
Seeing poor language and arithmetic skills as a major pain point in the learning curve of students, Samskriya Foundation initiated the first “Steps to Success” Primary School program in a Chennai Corporation school in 2015. The teachers were trained in simple learning methodologies in Maths and English, as well as in classroom management. The program proved successful and the children learnt quickly.
With the success of the program, a separate Math and English lab was set up in various schools for a 3 year period, where Primary level classes learn experientially with materials. The blackboard is rarely used and Samskriya teachers in charge of the lab teach with a wide range of learning materials.
The program has been implemented in multiple schools in Chennai city with around 2480 students benefitting from the classes till now.
“Lab in a BackPack” STEM Classes
We also started the Science “Lab in a Backpack” project for Middle School students, who need practical understanding of basic Science concepts.
We teach Physics, Introductory Chemistry and Technology in line with the syllabus.
Students absorb not only the theory, but also the practical reasoning on “How Science is all around us”.
Our goal is to explain basic Science concepts in a practical, easy to understand format and our teaching is supportive and complementary to the work of the school Science teachers.
Starting with just 10 schools and 850 students, we have so far taught 24355 students in 120 schools.
“Strive” upskilling program for girls
In association with FICCI Flo, Chennai, we give basic generative AI and Financial literacy training to young college going girls.
Support us – help unlock the potential of young minds and ignite their imagination!
