Education, like a tree is an investment or an asset. The importance of school education lies in the fact that the children of today will become adult citizens of tomorrow. The growth and future of our country highly depends upon the quality of the present school education system. Unless opportunities of good education trail down to the grass-root level, the health of the nation will surely suffer.
It is important to understand that the facilities for education should be equal for all. After independence there has been an effort to spread education to all levels of Indian society. Statistics point to the fact that 99 per cent of children in age group 6-11 years have been enrolled in school. However, to bring the remaining into the ambit of universal primary education is proving difficult because some reside in inaccessible areas, there is a deep rooted prejudice against educating girls there are practical difficulties of distance and inaccessibility of schools. Moreover, the dropout rate is so high that universal elementary education is quite an elusive goal.
With this goal in mind, youth of New Delhi came up with an organization by the name The Education Tree (TET). TET was founded on November 11 2012 and is situated in New Delhi. The youth led organization aims to facilitate education in all its manifestations and redefine the quintessential notion of education that exists in our country.
Education is not solely about being academically fluent. It also must include art and craft, performing arts, gender sensitization, etc. TET lays special emphasis on these factors together with imparting sound education irrespective of the socioeconomic background, encouraging the country’s youth to shoulder social and environmental responsibilities and bring together those who want to teach and those who want to be taught.Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
The Education Tree is one of the fastest growing student led organizations in India that aspires to reach its goals by organizing events, campaigns, projects, conferences, community development programs and workshops. The project-based institution uses unique art forms such as freeze mobs, flash mobs, graffiti, chalk art, street dancing, street plays, etc to create awareness about the solutions to the problems that curtail the education of a child in the country. Freeze mobs turn out to be a very innovative and powerful medium of publicity .Under this method a heavily populated area is targeted and then a group of people (approximately 60-70) take a freeze there for 5-10 minutes holding the posters that carry important information.
The ET team strives to break the stereotypes associated with education by broadening its horizons to encompass art forms such as art, music, theater, dance etc.TET has organized more than 1500 freeze mobs, flash mobs, etc in various schools, colleges and public places, etc. across the city. They also design and organize workshops on theater, personality development, corporate training, etc. in order to polish the skills which are required in every being in today’s world.
TET has been proving itself successful in the past couple of years with their unique and innovative initiatives. Beginning with ‘Project Emerge’ where less privileged students from senior secondary level and cultural handicaps, were empowered to face all the vicissitudes of life by providing them with free books and stationery and also by providing them with workshops in the field of dance, craft and theatre and giving them a platform where they could exhibit their talent.
In today’s scenario, the most important kind of education India requires is regarding the ‘respect for women’. TET has initiated the campaign, ‘Jo Mera Hai Wo Mera Hai (My body. My rights)’ along with ‘Being a Woman’. The objective of the campaign is to disseminate important information regarding various help lines, organizations, mobile applications, laws for women safety etc.
The Education Tree has made collaborations with Milind Deora, the Minister of State with the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications and the Minister of State with the Ministry of Shipping within the Government of India. They are also associated with Delhi Police, designing awareness based programs for them, to promote women safety and empowerment.TET has also worked with PVR Nest, the CSR unit of PVR Cinemas, to decipher the means to aid the vulnerable street children in the complexes and has organized a series of events in association with the DLF group.
Other initiatives by TET include:
- Nadaan Parindey (a fusion style of flash and freeze mob to fight against Child Labour.)
- Book Hour(urges people to commit to an hour of reading.)
- Aaghaaz(to promote the culture of street theatre across the country).
- World Music Day(where various professionals from the music sector are brought together under one roof.)
- Youth Photography Festival(An annual feature of TET celebrating photography).
- Campus to Corporate,(workshops to bridge the gap between college and corporate world.) etc.
- Project Badlaav(A Milind Deora initiative by Uthspeak.)
The organization till now has successfully conducted more than 600 workshops and has reached out to more than 20,000 students across the city.
The various educational tie-ups they have are:
SCHOOL LEVEL
1) Rukmini Devi Public School, Pitam Pura
2) Maharaja Agrasen Model School, Pitam Pura
3) Delhi Public School, Rohini
4) Bal Bharti Public School, Rohini
5) Bal Bharti Public School, Pitam Pura
6) St. Thomas Girls School, Mandir Marg
7) Presentation Convent School, Chandni Chowk
8) St. Xaviers School, Civil Lines
UNIVERSITY LEVEL
1) Shri Ram College of Commerce
2) Hansraj College
3) Sri Gurogobind Singh College of Commerce
4) S.G.T.B Khalsa College
5) Shivaji College
6) Jesus & Merry College
7) Indraprastha College for Women
8) Vivekanananda Institute of Professional Studies
9) Daulat Ram College
10) Miranda House
11) Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies
Contact information:
www.facebook.com/theeducationtree
E-mail: [email protected]
Thank you THE EDUCATION TREE ! Its a great initiative.. And a very good article ..
Thanks for your support Nishanth!