Located in the lush green hills of Guwahati, Pamohi is Akshar Foundation School. This free eco-friendly school is providing two important sources of life sustenance: education and career for its students.
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The population in this part of Assam, India are particularly below the standard economic line. When founders Mazin Mukhtar and Parmita Sharma first transformed their idea into bricks and walls, they knew they had to think outside the box.
How do they do it? They only accept fees in the form of plastic waste.
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The school has some 110 students aged between 4 to 15 years old. Each week, they are required to bring about 25 bags of plastic waste each to fund their education. Why plastic waste, you ask?
The community living there are known to use plastic extensively. They collect it in piles and set it up in a bonfire to warm them up during the winter. The founders thought of killing two birds with one stone; convincing the parents to send their kids to school and making them pledge against unplanned disposal of plastic waste.
Besides that, Akshar Foundation provides its students with vocational skills. In the school, they are taught to recycle their plastic waste into useful things, one of them being the eco-bricks.
They are made from densely packed plastic bottles turned into bricks used as building materials. The students get paid for selling these plastic bottles, the money which they can use to buy learning essentials at school.
Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, Akshar Foundation introduces practical education to its students.
They are trained to install and operate solar panels as well as design the school’s landscape.
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Getting all of these done within the parameter of the school gives the students a realistic hope that education and career can happen simultaneously, with the guidance from the right people.
To know more about Akshar Foundation, watch the video below:
Credit: BrightVibes / East Mojo
