Empowering Young Minds

Till date, the Alohomora Education Foundation has enabled 1,500 students from government schools, helping them take charge of their learning and career choices. In conversation with MARWAR, co-founder Parinita Jain talks about her journey of empowering them with the skills required to achieve their dreams.

- Pooja Mujumdar

IT WAS THEIR PASSION FOR working with children and the desire to bridge the huge gaps they saw in the government schooling system that prompted Parinita Jain and Divakar Sankhla to establish the Alohomora Education Foundation in 2017. The mission was to help students from underserved communities become independent learners and give them the confidence needed to make informed life choices. “Along with the essential skills and mindsets, we also wanted to create an ecosystem of support for students by connecting them with experts for specific skill learning and mentors and organisations for learning opportunities once they finish school,” says Jain.

The duo has been immensely successful to this end and today the Foundation is supporting students like Dhanesh—who is skilling himself in design and is being mentored by design experts—and Akash—who is a part of a learning community organised by the Foundation and is building skills required to work in the fitness industry. Currently, the Foundation is working with 1,500 students from the 11th and 12th grades of 16 government schools in Delhi and Gurugram.

Catalysing change

Jain graduated with a BBA in Finance and Strategy from the University of Michigan in 2011 and spent some time supporting her family business in Kolkata before joining the Teach for India Fellowship programme in 2012. Sankhla, on the other hand, graduated with a BTech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from IIT Madras in 2005 and completed his MBA from IIM Lucknow in 2007. He subsequently worked for a few years with PepsiCo and later with Citibank before joining the Teach for India Fellowship programme in 2012.