"Empower Artisans with Every Purchase: Thecraftroot Dedicates 2% to Saathi Gurukul's Mission"
Saathi Gurukul is born from Saathi's 33-year journey empowering artisans in Bastar. In the face of globalization's exploitative market forces, Saathi realized the crucial role education plays in breaking cycles of exploitation. Hence, Gurukul emerged as a beacon, providing holistic education blending traditional wisdom with modern pedagogy. It aims to nurture critical thinkers, compassionate leaders, and changemakers, empowering them to tackle 21st-century challenges. Through experiential learning and community engagement, students are equipped to create a more just and sustainable world. Gurukul embodies Saathi's legacy of empowerment, believing education rooted in equity and dignity can catalyze lasting social change.
Story
Saathi Gurukul school was established in 2004 in Kumharpara, Kondagaon, Chhattisgarh. The school was established with the intent to provide quality and holistic education accessible to the members of nearby villages. Currently, they have 400 students enrolled, 98% of whom belong to the SC, ST, and OBC communities. Their students come from families of artisans, craftsmen, and farmers. Their pedagogy is focused on fostering an education that provides each one of their students with an opportunity to decide their futures and build the self-esteem of students. As mentioned before, its USP is that they don’t limit their pedagogy solely to schooling but also envision their students to build self-esteem and foster rural entrepreneurship to combat the problem of excessive migration.
​Challenges
Students come from a low economic background, hence their charges are little to no fee for students, and they also have no sponsors. This has led to inadequate financial assistance to run the school. Apart from this, the school is located in the interior of Bastar, Chhattisgarh. Thus, acquiring the necessary resources to run their school the way they want is difficult. No teachers are ready to come and stay in a village; that's why all their teachers are locals who require proper training to be nurtured in the pedagogy of the school. This process requires time and a lot of financial investment. During the seven months of Covid, they made it a point to pay all staff salaries. However, today they are at a juncture where their savings have been depleted, and it won't be feasible for us to continue with their work and cover the administrative costs to run Saathi Gurukul. For the time being, they want to invest in training their teachers and building a more appropriate and comprehensive curriculum with the help of alternative educators, which will give their students a comprehensive learning experience with Gandhi’s Nai Talim in mind. It shall enable us to build a stronger foundation for their school.