Our Story
Srot means source.
And in many ways, for us it is a journey back to our source. We would love to share this journey with you all.
We often hope for remarkable origin stories. But most stories are more commonplace than we might think.
Srot means source.
And in many ways, for us it is a journey back to our source. We would love to share this journey with you all.
We often hope for remarkable origin stories. But most stories are more commonplace than we might think.
In July 2020, a group of passionate volunteers came together through the Himalayan volunteer tourism (HvT) Facebook page, to start helping students in Tirthan Valley, Himachal Pradesh by offering academic support. Soon, the work increased and the project born out of HvT became independent. By March 2022 in Tirthan, the Srot Foundation had:
Today, we have about 70 students who come regularly to our 3 centres and another 12-15 who come from time to time, for the afterschool programme. We offer academic support to these students. We also help those in class 9 and upwards get more exposure through our volunteer programme as well as by interacting with others working in various fields by arranging meetings with them.
Apart from these there are 4 girls (class 9 to 2nd yr BA) who live at the centre and are pursuing their education. We offer them full academic support and take care of all their educational needs.
1 Student who wanted to resume her education after a gap of 3 years also has been receiving support from us.
Most of the students who we support in anyway belong to low income families. Hence, all the support we offer to the students is either heavily subsidized or free of charge, supported mostly by donor contributions.
While most children in Tirthan go to school and access to schooling is good, most of these children have not been able to cultivate the right approach to learning. Everything they do is either for homework which they copy from guide books or for exams that they write by memorizing entire textbooks (Even the Maths textbook!).
The result is children often have no idea of the relevance in everyday life of the things they are expected to learn. They also do not know how to do it independently. The consequence is, they have marks but very little in terms of learning.
They also lack the exposure and the thought process to effectively consider and plan for a future.
We step in to fill the huge learning gaps and a mentorship vacuum in the lives of the students in Tirthan Valley.
Our approach is learning oriented rather than exam oriented and we try to help them learn how to learn.
“What motivates these people?”, one might ask.
The answer is simple and clear to us. No forest can be called healthy unless its diversity is truly appreciated and all its life gets what it needs. Nurture is important even to nature, and humans are a part of nature. Without the right kind of nurturing, we breed exclusion rather than inclusion, hatred rather than love, disdain rather than compassion, and a painful death rather than a peaceful end. There is no nurture without giving. We pray that we always have a positive effect on those around us and we do what we can.
Thus, the fact that, whether academic support or mentorship, the work we do is essential work that can make a real difference in the lives of the students we work with is what keeps us going.