Nithin Kamath’s Weblog

India is said to be the land of Villages with a large percentage of Indian population living in the villages. Education is difficult in these villages with most of the schools lacking the very basic facilities, hence the children have a hard time being in school.

On the other end of the spectrum we all know the urban lifestyle, where the school going children want new bags, books, uniforms, etc every year. Quite stunning right, So what do you do with the old but good items which the urban kids throw out every year? This is where the SCHOOL to SCHOOL initiative by Goonj steps in, it is a concept of turning someone’s wastage into a resource for another. Normally school children in far off villages don’t even have a pencil or a book to write on forget the chairs and tables. So the idea is to motivate the urban school children to donate the material they discard annually at the beginning of a new term. The site mentions:

The best example is 32 plates given by a corporate and we reached it to a small primary school in Uttranchal. Earlier for the midday meals half of the students used to wait for the rest to finish as there weren’t enough plates. This was really tough as most students walked almost six kilometres not only for studies but also for the midday meal, a dream for them, given their financial conditions.

More information about this initiative can be had by visiting http://www.goonj.info/schooltoschool.php