For children who have never owned a book, we turn a city's museums into a school. Science by playing with inventions, history among ancient ornaments, maths thrown with pebbles. Quality education, at no cost.
By the numbers
Why it exists
A rich child gets the finest building, every teaching aid, and many teachers for one class. A poor child gets five rooms, no aids, and one teacher for many classes.
If the foundation itself is unequal, equality stays a dream. Parvarish was built to close that gap, not by building another school, but by opening the doors of the ones a city already has: its museums.
How it beganThe model
Every city with out-of-school children also has museums, each built around a subject. Parvarish maps the exhibits to the curriculum and turns the whole museum into a classroom.
The museums themselves, spaces no school could ever afford to build.
The exhibits: working models, specimens and artifacts a child can see and touch.
B.Ed students completing their mandatory practice teaching, at their very best.
Children are mainstreamed through regular schools and the National Open School.
Curriculum / Catalogue note
From behaviour to entrepreneurship
The curriculum moves from behavioural change to literacy, academics, physical and adolescence education, and finally vocational skills and entrepreneurship. The aim is a young person who is self-employable, confident, responsible and independent.
The campus
Bhopal's museums each teach a different part of the world. Together they form a campus richer than any single building could be.
Physics, motion and the great inventions, learned by playing with them.
Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya: peoples, homes and ways of life.
Evolution, habitat and the living world, the five senses made visible.
History read straight from ancient ornaments, sculpture and stone.
Culture and architecture explored through a treasure hunt across tribal habitats. Weekend chapters also run with museums in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.
"Seeing is believing. We learn what we see."
A typical day
At 2 PM, teachers fan out into the slums to walk the children to the bus, meeting families along the way. The bus fills with greetings as it gathers children from three neighbourhoods.
At the museum the children line up for the prayer song, then split into groups by age. Lessons use objects from nature and games. A shared meal follows, then time to roll on the grass and play. The ride home is known to every passing commuter, because it returns full of songs.
Walk through a dayThe outcome
It began with 20 children from one slum. In eighteen months it reached 70 from three. Since then, more than 2,500 children have passed through.
Some are now studying engineering, science and commerce at university. Some perform Bharatanatyam or act on stage. Some have started small livelihoods of their own. A few have returned to Parvarish as teachers. Through the pandemic, children even hand-painted folk-art diyas under the brand Artsy, shipped to homes across India and abroad.
Awards and recognitionA People's Project
Parvarish began with the Dorabji Tata Trust and grew into a project sustained by ordinary citizens, the Parvarish Kartas, who each take a child under their wing.
Cover a child's fees, materials and after-school support for a year, and watch one childhood change shape.
Become a KartaOne-time or ongoing gifts keep the bus running, the meals warm and the materials stocked.
ContributeTeach, train, document or build. Students and professionals are welcome to join the work.
Get involvedExhibit / Film · 2 min