“I did not like going to school. The teachers taught us, but sometimes they also scolded and hit us. I never really felt interested in learning,” recalls nine-year-old Jamna Prasad.
Growing up in Bankhedi village in Madhya Pradesh, school was never a place he looked forward to. With teachers juggling several classes at once, asking questions or learning at his own pace was rarely possible.
Today, the Class 5 student eagerly waits for his turn with a tablet that teaches through games. He can now read the alphabet, solve addition and subtraction, and dreams of wearing a police uniform one day.
“I enjoy learning with my friends,” he says. “The Monkey Game is my favourite. Now I understand my studies much better.”
Across six districts of Madhya Pradesh, children who struggled with basic lessons are beginning to learn differently. Behind the change is 32-year-old Shruti Shrivastava, who once imagined serving from inside a government office.
Today, as founder-director of Sashaktikaran Foundation, she oversees Project Neev, which has reached around 900 children across 10 government schools and nine residential hostels, while creating livelihoods for 30 rural women as Shiksha Saathis.
Looking back, she says her purpose did not change. Only the path did.
When the IAS dream came to an end
Shruti grew up across several towns in Madhya Pradesh because of her parents’ transferable government jobs, exposing her early to inequalities in education and opportunity.
“I’ve always been a compassionate person. As a child, I began noticing the inequalities around me. Seeing children miss out on quality education only because their parents couldn’t afford it, and watching women constantly held back by stereotypes and prejudice, made me realise I wanted to do something to change that,” she tells The Better India.
She studied philosophy at Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi and then spent years preparing for the Civil Services Examination. “For me, becoming a civil servant was never the final dream,” she says. “It was the path towards the larger goal of working with society and for society.”
Across six attempts, she cleared four preliminary examinations and reached the interview stage once. On 16 April 2024, the UPSC results ended a dream she had carried for nearly a decade.
“The UPSC journey ended the day my years-long dream shattered. For the next few weeks, I was trying to hold myself together and come to terms with the fact that the life I had imagined for so many years was no longer going to happen,” she recalls.
She spent May and June recovering and deciding what came next. “Restarting life at the age of 30 wasn’t easy. I was nervous because I was beginning from scratch.”
Yet the larger goal had always been social change. She began to see that there might be another route to it.
A foundation that needed a second beginning
At the same time, Sashaktikaran Foundation in Jaipur was preparing to shut down. Shruti’s college batchmate and close friend Mrinalika Rathore had founded it on 8 March 2017, working with children in low-income schools through Project Parivartan.
Mrinalika later cleared the Civil Services Examination and joined the Odisha cadre as an IAS officer. Government service meant stepping away from the organisation, and there was no obvious successor.
Shruti had known the foundation from the beginning and supported its work informally. When Mrinalika offered her the chance to take over in July 2024, it also brought back a conversation the two friends had once had.
“It was emotional in many ways because she isn’t just a friend; she is someone whose values closely match mine. We had spoken about how she would work from within the government while I would continue working outside it, so taking over the foundation felt like continuing a shared vision,” Shruti explains.
“At that point, I needed momentum,” she says. “She handed me something that already had a strong foundation. It gave me the courage to begin again.”
Her sister Smriti joined as co-director, bringing her design background to communications and organisational development. They also met Adarsh Mohandas, an education professional with nearly a decade of development-sector experience.
“Because of my UPSC preparation, I had become a generalist. I understood the issues well, but I also knew I needed someone with technical expertise in education to build a programme that could create real impact,” Shruti says.
Adarsh brought the idea that became Project Neev. As co-founder and programme director, he leads implementation on the ground, while Shruti focuses on strategy, fundraising and organisational development.
One teacher, five grades and very little time
By September 2024, the team was travelling through villages, meeting parents, teachers, women and children, and observing classrooms.
A pattern emerged. In many schools, one or two teachers managed five grades. Classes 1, 2 and 3 often sat together, while Classes 4 and 5 shared another room, leaving little time to understand every child’s learning level.
“When I first began visiting these schools, I realised teachers were doing everything they possibly could,” Shruti says. “The challenge was not a lack of commitment. It was a lack of time, resources and infrastructure.”
Project Neev was officially launched in October 2024, with work on the ground beginning on 14 November. The idea was to strengthen government schools from within, rather than create a parallel system.
“Government schools educate the majority of rural children, so creating another system may help a few, but strengthening the existing public system is what creates lasting change,” she says.
That meant working alongside teachers and training women from the same villages as learning facilitators.
What learning at your own pace looks like
Each day, batches of five children step out of class for a 30-minute learning session with a Shiksha Saathi. Each child uses a tablet and logs into an individual profile on Chimple, an application developed by Sutara Foundation.
One child may be identifying letters while another reads sentences and a third practises subtraction. The app resumes from where each child stopped the previous day.
“That is the biggest difference,” Shruti explains. “In a classroom with multiple grades sitting together, it is impossible for one teacher to personalise learning for every child. Through this project, each child learns according to their own level rather than according to their age or class.”
The activities use puzzles, sounds, colourful characters and exercises that advance only after a child understands a concept. Afterwards, they write in notebooks while the facilitator observes their progress.
At the end of each session, two streams of information reach the foundation’s Bhopal office: learning data generated by the app and weekly observations from Shiksha Saathis on each child’s confidence, participation and understanding.
“Technology tells us what a child has completed,” Shruti says. “Our Shiksha Saathis tell us how that child learnt. Both are equally important because education is not only about numbers.”
The cycle runs five times a day. While one batch learns with a Shiksha Saathi, the teacher can give the remaining students more attention. Participating children get 30 minutes of focused learning without interrupting regular teaching. A similar model runs after school in government residential hostels, including those in Bankhedi, Podhar, Choorna and Narmadapuram.
The women leading those classrooms
Project Neev depends on women from the communities it serves. Some had never travelled outside their district alone; others had stopped studying because further education was unaffordable.
Shruti deliberately did not make graduation compulsory.
“We were not looking for teachers,” she says. “We were looking for women who had the potential to become facilitators. We wanted to create opportunities for women who had capability but not necessarily degrees.”
Applicants are tested in basic Hindi, English, mathematics, communication and aptitude, followed by group discussions, interviews, orientation and continuous training. Field coordinators mentor them monthly, and an annual three-day residential retreat brings the Shiksha Saathis together.
For 22-year-old Chhaya Raja of Jatauwa village, the role reopened a future she had almost given up on.
“From Class 6 onwards, I used to hide from my father and go to school,” she says. “I somehow completed Class 12, but I could not continue because college meant more money and travelling.”
When she reached the recruitment drive in November 2024, nearly 30 women were already waiting. “I almost turned back,” she remembers with a laugh. “I thought there was no chance I would be selected. But someone from the team encouraged me to stay and attempt the test.”
She finished with the highest score.
Today, she manages learning sessions, speaks with teachers and parents, and recently addressed more than 200 people at the foundation’s annual celebration.
“The biggest change has been my confidence. Earlier, I hardly stepped out of my house, but now people recognise me because of my work. I was even able to save enough money to buy a motorbike for my family,” she says.
Savita Ahirwar from Bankhedi joined Project Neev in August 2025. Her father, now around 80, could no longer work, and the family depended largely on pensions. Despite a physical disability affecting her legs, she works with children while continuing her studies.
“Earlier, I was hesitant and struggled to express myself, but now I can confidently speak in front of people. My salary helps pay for my parents’ medicines, and it has also allowed me to continue my own studies,” she says.
Other Shiksha Saathis have used their earnings to repair a village well, buy a scooter or purchase a motorcycle for a parent.
“Whenever I meet them, I remind them they are not beneficiaries,” Shruti says. “They are changemakers. They are the ones improving education in their villages.”
When children stop believing they are ‘bad at studies’
Shruti remembers one child who stopped attending school because he could not read and felt like a failure. His Shiksha Saathi began visiting him after school, helping him learn without pressure and gradually encouraging him to return.
“Now he comes to school happily because he feels he can actually learn,” she says. “That change in confidence is difficult to measure, but it matters more than any statistic.”
Of the roughly 900 children who have participated, 291 improved by at least one learning level in Hindi, 327 progressed in English, and 355 advanced by one or more levels in mathematics, with some moving up by as many as three levels.
Children who attend regularly have shown learning growth ranging from 70 to 200 percent, according to the foundation.
“We are trying to create lifelong learners,” Shruti says. “The future will keep changing. Jobs will keep changing. If children know how to teach themselves, they will always be able to adapt.”
‘We don’t want to touch lives briefly and move on’
When Sashaktikaran Foundation restarted in July 2024, Shruti’s parents supported it financially before donations arrived. Since then, nearly 200 individual donors have contributed.
“People often ask how we built that trust, and the answer is easy. We remained transparent, shared stories, photographs and updates from the field, and wanted every donor to know exactly which child they were helping,” she says.
The organisation also works with Madhya Pradesh’s Departments of Education, Tribal Affairs and Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Communities. It hopes to expand carefully, while developing initiatives around women’s livelihoods and children from denotified and nomadic communities.
“We don’t want to touch lives briefly and move on,” Shruti says. “We want depth. We want longevity. We want children to become confident, critical thinkers and self-learners, and we want women to become leaders in their own communities.”
Then comes a line that captures how she now sees the work: “In an ideal India, organisations like ours shouldn’t be needed at all.”
Years ago, Shruti believed she could serve the country only after clearing one of its toughest examinations. Today, that idea has changed.
In classrooms across Madhya Pradesh, public service looks like five children around a table, each learning at their own pace, with a woman from their village beside them, helping them believe they can learn.
All pictures courtesy Shruti Shrivastava.