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By Shaheen Mistri Shaheen Mistri is building a bridge between poor children living in slums and a broad range of institutions that cater primarily to middle class Indian children. In the process, she is creating new opportunities for poor children and helping middle class institutions and corporate houses combat high levels of illiteracy among the urban poor
 Most slum children do not get marketable skills at their schools. Government schools in India provide free education, but they are poorly equipped and have a high student-teacher ratio. Children passing out of government schools fail miserably even at the basic level. In addition the government system simply overlooks many slum children. No enrollment process assures that every child will be in school. And nearly one-half of enrolled children drop out before completing five years of schooling. The result is generational illiteracy, more kids growing up without an understanding of how to break the cycle of poverty. Yet the idea that middle class-oriented schools will integrate poor kids and work to serve the poor is still not widely accepted. As a result, there is a need to find new ways to harness the skills of these middle class institutions in ways that improve educational and job prospects for poor children. Shaheen Mistri takes kids out of their slum communities and exposes them to education that supplements what they receive in government schools while also supplementing their life experience. The children have a chance to thrive in a creative learning environment with outstanding materials and personalised instruction for a few hours every day. Shaheen's schools, called Akanksha Centres, operate before and after office hours, in middle class schools and in public places such as science centres and corporate offices. There are now 20 centres up and running in the city of Bombay, and five in Pune. Shaheen starts by targeting the poorest kids, most in need of high-quality supplements to their education and their lives, and she makes a long-term commitment to them and their families. The curriculum is filled with fun activities and lays special emphasis on math and English. The kids draw, do geometry, and sing English songs. Their mothers help with the art programme by helping their children prepare their work to be shown and marketed in commercial settings. Each centre has two head teachers, regularly scheduled volunteers, and a student-teacher ratio of about 12 to 1. Teacher training is intensive and continuous, starting with a full week for new teachers. Besides their clever use of underused space, the venues make it easier to build alliances with corporations who wish to help and to mobilise high quality volunteers. Each Akanksha Centre is supported by a business corporation. Staff members are encouraged to build relationships with the kids by teaching them something, celebrating festivals with them, or simply playing a game of football with them. This helps to build a long-term relationship with the sponsor company. Shaheen is planning to spread what she has learned about three core variables that affect education programmes for poor children: underused resources, organised volunteers, and high quality materials. At the age of 18, Shaheen left university in the United States and returned to India. She was drawn to working with poor kids and looked for work as a volunteer. Visits to the slums made her realise how powerful education could be for those children. She recruited a batch of friends to join her in some initial experiments. In 1990, Shaheen started the first Akanksha centre, with her college friends as her first group of volunteers and 40 children from the nearby slum. Shaheen is a Fellow of Ashoka Innovators for the Public, a global non-profit organisation set up in 1981 to build an association of social entrepreneurs who will undertake socially productive and innovative work in health, education, human rights, civic participation, environment and economic development (www.ashokaind.org/ www.ashoka.org).
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