Saarthi, a Delhi-based startup, focuses on parents’ education to make them more independent and educated. There are many initiatives that focus on the education of children for their better future. However, they always miss out on one major gamechanger in the children’s education- the parents.
Saarthi works with families with relatively lower-income, parents who work as vendors or cab drivers. Helping and educating the parents to make them get more involved in their children’s academic progress.
Researches have shown that children who attend school need a similar atmosphere and full support of their family at home to succeed. Millions of families suffer from a lack of proper education. Thus they don’t know the value of good education and how to support their children.
One such student is Ruchi, who tells how Saarthi helped her with interactive learning kits and easy to understand techniques. Ever since she has been able to help her 5-year old with his homework. This has increased her son’s confidence at school and now they both look forward to their school classes every day,
How Saarthi changed the game
Saarthi was founded by Ankit Arora in 2017 who was always bothered by the education level of the country. He had a well-paying job but he left it and started teaching slum children. Then in 2012, he joined the ‘Teach for India’ initiative where he taught girls from the slums in Delhi. Later helped other education entrepreneurs with their startups.
Smruti Savkur, who leads the Strategy at Saarthi believes that parents are children’s first educators. When parents have the resources, it helps the children learn and understand better.
Today schools are filled with children. The government schools are lacking teachers. In such a case, it becomes impossible for the teacher to pay attention to every student. At home, parents can cover up for that if they understand what their students are being taught.
So far, the outcome of Saarthi’s work has been great. It employs an international grading test which tells that there has been an increase of more than 27% in the literacy rates of the children whose parents are a part of this initiative. In fact, the interactive kits provided by Saarthi are in massive demand.
