While scribbling on the walls of his house an idea was born, the idea was - Aawaaz.
Tarang Tripathi and Vibhor Mathur, our founders, recognized the underlying problems with the Indian Education System. The system believes that to succeed in life all you need to do is excel in academics.
This simple idea disregards the fact that students who come from weaker socio-economic backgrounds will always be at a disadvantage, even when given the same access to education. Coming from a more privileged educational experience, his experience as a teacher in a government school made him realize first hand the magnitude of inequality that exists in education in India. He wanted to look at the reasons and causes behind this educational inequality and perhaps try to enhance the access of underprivileged students to quality education. To expand the impact that he wanted to see, he founded Aawaaz in 2014. In its first year, Aawaaz was a small project within Teach For India where we designed a curriculum that was aimed at increasing public speaking skills in students while informing them of the multiple complexities (caste, religion, class, language) that exist in their class and around them.
“I believed that dialogue and communication were key in striving towards a better form of education for the students. Working with the students of a government school I realized that to break free and move ahead of their obstacles, often all they require is just the right help like I did. They need the right platform, the right curriculum, and the right educational environment to support them.” - Tarang Tripathi.
As an organization, we realized that the problem of inequity did not just exist in government schools, but across private schools as well. We focus on training teachers and creating curricula that are aimed at achieving equity by including the different socioeconomic, cultural, religious and linguistic and economic differences that get left out of classroom teachings and discussions. Mobilizing 150 volunteers, today we have reached 100+ private and government schools across the country, helping them develop three particular strands: Extra Curricular, Co-Curricular and Academic Growth. Some of our work includes developing the Social Science curriculum for Grade 6-8th, facilitating debate and MUN training, organizing skill development workshops, and working with teachers to develop a more inclusive classroom.
Our mission is to make education equitable and accessible to all, which has driven and motivated our small team to work tirelessly over the course of these five long years. Over the years we have evolved into an organization with a national presence and yet we realize that there is a long way to go. We hope to make education more accessible and more interesting by fostering conducive relationships with not just students but also with teachers, parents and fellow educators across India.