Citizen Student
children Sukriti Chiripal, a student in
Kolkata has been finding ways to
change the lives of disadvantaged
children by convincing their parents
to send them to school. Many of them
are beggars or ragpickers. Sukriti’s
NGO Sangam distributes books and
other study material besides
organizing workshops on learning to
those who haven’t been to school
before. Sukriti has been able to
mobilize more than 100 student
volunteers in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi,
Patna and Raigarh, through social
media, to take up similar work in
these cities. She claims that the
network has been able to reach more
than 1000 downtrodden children.A Maths Teacher With a
Differenceeducation Mathematics, somehow,
isn’t always a beloved subject. It cer-
tainly wasn’t so in Preeti Sharma’s
school when she joined it in Chhattis-
garh’s Baghera village in the Rajnand-
gaon district a few years ago. Wanting
to change things, she set up a ‘maths
lab’ with the help of her students. The
equipment was made of commonly
available waste materials like thermo-
col, broken wooden planks, clay, etc.
The idea was to make maths fun, us-
ing these teaching aids. Sharma has
evidently succeeded—the school per-
formed very well not just in mathe-
matics but also in other subjects. What
a fine example for teachers to follow!GOOD NEWS
for a
Better Planet30 february 2020
Sukriti Chiripal (far left) with volunteers
and beneficiaries of Sangamabove:^sukritichirpal,^right:^alamy