BY STUDENTS FOR STUDENTS

Children even cross the Gomti river to attend classes offered by Koshish, an NGO which has student volunteers from an engineering college teach school kids from poor, marginalised communities.

- Sanjay

Every evening at 4 pm, students from villages around Kamla Nehru Institute of Technollogy (KNIT), Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh gather in an open area near the banks of river Gomti. They come to attend the two-hour classes run by volunteers of non-profit organisation, Koshish Educational and Welfare Society, since 2011. The children who attend these classes for free hail from "economically and socially backward families". They are enrolled in Sultanpur government schools but find the Koshish classes a "boon". The volunteers are students of the engineering college affiliated to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow.

"Our parents are not educated enough to guide us. The teachers at Koshish provide guidance on what we can do in life through education. They are humble and help us to achieve the best according to our capabilities and capacities. We are still connected with Koshish teachers and we still receive guidance from them whenever we need it. Koshish is a boon for us," said Khusi Vishwakarma who attended these classes till Class 10.

Khusi, now a student of a government polytechnic in Lucknow is among the four girls of Koshish who got selected in 2022.

The non-profit was founded 11 years ago by KNIT-alumnus Chetan Giri Goswami and is funded by the institute's alumni. It has helped kids secure admission in government polytechnic colleges and central government-run Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV). Anshika Yadav, who attended classes from Classes 1 to 10, secured admission in BA Japanese in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) last year. So far, 25 students who attended Koshish classes got admission in JNVS and nine students were selected for government polytechnic colleges.