As Thomas Paine once preached, "The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark." Education is the element that polishes and prospers this enlightenment, but unfortunately belonging to the part of a growing economy, this path towards literacy is darkened by circumstances.
Education, the safest precursor of our bread and butter has been the victim of various hurdles, from gender to death; a lot has lingered upon our society resisting kids to reach schools. The story is somewhat different this time; the kids are in their uniforms, desperately waiting for their buses to come.
Hurdles to catch the school bus
The conclusion remains the same, but this time its a different tale. We are accustomed in this society to hear about instances where kids are kept away from books and schools from reasons varying from gender, poverty to infrastructure or mere cultural differences, but this time it's the distance that's curbing and the campaign shows us through a documented film.
It's a story of Bhelu village and such villages in the state of Maharashtra that are just 10 kms away from SREC English Medium School. The school currently provides a holistic English Education to 700 children from 55 villages in the Raigad district. Limited in resources, the school has only five buses that cover 55 villages, which resulted in the rejection of plenty admissions.
The video shows us struggles of parents and the schools with the lack of transportation facilities for the students, this directly affecting the upcoming generation of those towns around.
Trying to #GetOnTheBus
1SmallStep Foundation has collaborated with Milaap.org to raise funds for a school bus for the Shree Raj Education Center (SREC) through #GetOnTheBus campaign. Through this campaign, they’re determined to get the social media and spectators into action through a crowd-funding aid to build the future of plenty.
Rohan Bhansali, Founder, 1SmallStep Foundation who also heads the digital agency, Gozoop.com, said, "From my conversations with Adiwasi families of Raigad and Principal Joshi of SREC, we understood the magnitude of social impact 1 school bus could create.I got together my team at Gozoop and we designed and planned the #GetOnTheBus, a digital crowd-funding campaign on Milaap.”
Through this crowd funded social initiative, they aim to mold and enhance the dreams of several parents from the lower strata to provide their children with a decent education in English medium schools. If this initiative manages to meet success and bring in a bus within July 25th, which marks the last day of admission, then about 100 more students will be privileged to get schooling.
Social boost
Currently, #GetOnTheBus campaign has managed to raise 1,405,262 out of the desired 1,850,000 on Milaap.org, which is also known to be a large crowd funding platform. The thought of social crowd-funding completely resonates with 1SmallStep’s philosophy that small act of generosity eventually creates a great impact.
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The film has already gained 13k views and 176 reactions since its release on July 13. Milaap as an organization boasts of 125,981 followers on Facebook and 5,269 on Twitter, which itself portrays its wide reach on social media, which will definitely give a push to accomplish their target within the date.
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