When little Shraddha was in class 7, she wanted to become a pilot. She knew that they flew planes, but knew nothing about becoming one. When Santosh Digambarrao Phad, founder of Think Sharp Foundation opened a StudyMall in Surangali, an educationally backward region in rural Maharashtra, she was exposed to a world where she could find answers to her questions and chase her dreams. Today, she is moving in that direction.
Santosh has been striving to make rural villages in Maharashtra digitally empowered in education since 2011. An MBA graduate, Santosh hails from Mandwa in Beed district of Maharashtra. He had been fortunate enough to acquire a decent education and a job with a finance company. On a visit to his village, he was disheartened to see that while the metro cities had moved beyond learning from books, education in rural areas remained largely sub-standard. “While schools in metro cities had become technologically advanced, schools in villages did not even have a roof. There was increased absenteeism due to low interest in learning,” he said.
He conceived the idea that could bridge the gap between rural and urban learning in schools. He devised a concept of StudyMalls in rural villages. It is an idea of a library that provides better educational infrastructure in rural areas by including an attractive sitting place during and after school with books, educational games, toys, computer learning, digital/multimedia learning along with workshops conducted by volunteers on various topics.
The social entrepreneur also recounts the challenges he faced at the onset of this social venture. Funding was one among them. “It took us two years to raise Rs 70,000 to start a centre in Surangali village in Jalna. It was difficult as there were no crowdfunding platforms at the time,” he said.
Today, he relies on a crowdfunding platform to raise funds for his projects. “It is easier to reach people who wish to donate. I believe that crowdfunding is a platform where people can believe in your ideas, even if they don’t donate at least our work is reaching them,” he said.
His first project took off in 2013 in a rented space in Surangali village. They hired a computer-literate volunteer from the area to assist children in interactive learning through digital means. Soon, the social entrepreneur opened two more centres within school premises in Varangaon village in Jalgaon and Vangani (W) village in Thane. These interactive study libraries have impacted about 1,500 children in three villages. Most of them belong to farming families.
“At times there would be no electricity in the village. We have even installed solar lamps in the centres so that they continue to play and learn,” he said.
Currently, the social startup plans to raise money through crowdfunding to start a new centre in Chikatgaon in Aurangabad. Santosh’s dream is to open StudyMalls in all villages in India. For this, they are looking at contributions from the corporate and Small and medium enterprises through CSR activities. In the next five years, they plan to open 3-4 StudyMalls a year and create comprehensive digital learning classrooms for the existing centres.
