You are leading the building of relationships with educators and influencers of the education system. Why is this important?
As an organization, we are driven to ‘democratize learning’. While Sri Lanka has free education, between 20,000 – 30,000 children fall out of the system each year because they don’t have the essentials to attend school. And even when children go to school, not every child experiences the same quality of education. This might be due to the lack of adequate infrastructure in the schools or due to certain gaps in the educators’ training.
Recognizing the gaps in the system, the people that it impacts, and the barriers to solving these issues only can we start uplifting the system as a whole.
What programs do you currently run to impact these stakeholders meaningfully?
For the past 18 years, we have built infrastructure, given school essentials and scholarships to children in need, and been able to impact over 1 million lives.
This year, we have ventured on the ‘Light a Future’ program, which is a global initiative with Sarvodaya to ensure that over 100,000 students are able to stay within the education system, without being impacted by the ongoing economic struggles.
But what’s close to my heart are the training and learning programs we do via Atlas Learn for kids and teachers, as we were able to drive activity-based learning, and much-needed educational interventions, especially during COVID-impacted school closures.