GyanSetu (Bridge of Learning) is a network of micro-education social ventures run by Study Hall Educational Foundation. They are small, intimate learning support centers in rural and urban pockets where poverty, gender and caste intersect to stop children from going to school. Children who are out of school and are at high-risk of harm go through an accelerated learning program at the GyanSetu center. Upon completing the program, they are enrolled in formal schools, and are offered continuous supplementary education and support at their local GyanSetu center to ensure that they stay in school.
Run by passionate grassroots educators, GyanSetu centers operate in mango orchards, under city flyovers, and in small huts in dense urban slums. With strong webs of community support, our network of 65 GyanSetu centers with over 2000 children has transitioned 684 children to formal schools over the last six years. Select centers also offer a variety of complementary supports and programs for children and adolescents in their communities. These include a digital literacy training program, an early childhood development program (ages 3-6), and support for older children in registering and preparing for NIOS exams.
Additionally, GyanSetu envisions the role of its centers as providing a springboard for life outcomes, and encourages responsiveness through critical dialogues, which facilitate discussions among students on issues that affect and limit their lives. As with all SHEF schools and initiatives, GyanSetu strives to cultivate a universe of care, where care itself becomes a vehicle for empowerment and the educators honour every individual and voice while providing safe spaces in a web of supportive community relationships.
Over the years, GyanSetu centers have also evolved to serve as hubs of community transformation and regularly engage communities in discussing a variety of issues that are relevant to their lives. By engaging mothers, GyanSetu centers aim to increase women's awareness of their rights, and those of their children (particularly their daughters’). Support is extended in cases of domestic violence, abuse, substance abuse, and child marriage (among others) in collaboration with Suraksha, a family counselling organisation.
