The Project Jedi

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To reach out to less privileged children online to make them excited about reading and learning. 

April 15, 2020

 This is an opportunity for you to share your experience and skills as a mentor to a young student, aged 8 to 14 years. Your presence will not just help the children immensely in the short-term, but also lay the foundation for life-long support and transformation for them! 

To fix a call with us to know more about the program whatsapp us at +91 93487 31510. 

or/and

To help this project sustain.

After just one week of the lockdown in India due to COVID-19, the Childline India Helpline No. 1098 received 3.07 lakh calls, a spike of 50% over the average number of weekly calls. Issues concerned abuse and violence, physical health, child labour, Coronavirus queries, education uncertainties, and need for emotional support.

India’s 472 million children population has been confined to their homes. More than 13% of these children live in urban slums characterized by abject poverty, over-crowding, and unhealthy living conditions.

With the adults at home facing mental and financial issues, the problems of the children are often not understood and hence ignored, leading to adverse effects on their physical and mental wellbeing. In midst of this crisis our kids need us more than ever.

The kids who were coming to Unmukt could not attend their regular sessions due to the sudden lockdown. Uncertainty, anxiety, and fear of unknown set into all of us. But as adults, we have the means to cope up with our tension but what about children? On the top of it, Unmukt kids are mostly daily wagers’ offspring. Instantly, their parents became jobless and, in some cases, there was no food. With the mounting trouble at home, no school, and no friends to share things with, the immense mental pressure our kids were going through made us think of new ideas. 

We formed a group of volunteers/Jedis. Jedi means a member of the mystical knightly order in the Star Wars films, trained to guard peace and justice in the Universe. Jedi - a friend/mentor to kids in these difficult times. That is how the Project Jedi was born.

Since we started in a couple of weeks of the nation-wide lockdown, we were fortunate to get some brilliant minds on board. People from IIMs, NITs, and many other eminent institutes extended a hand of help. Some of them are entrepreneurs, while some of them work for top corporates in India. Soon more people voluntarily joined in and numbers are still increasing.

Mentors have brought in diverse and enriching styles of knowledge sharing and innovative ways of engaging with the kids. We got some amazing results and children have shown a lot of improvement and enthusiasm for learning. They made sketches to spread awareness about Corona. They have been improving their communication skills and becoming more aware of the environmental issues. A few of them are even learning coding. Some of the Jedis have also mentioned that this program has helped them to cope up with pandemic by giving them a sense of purpose.

This project has the potential to empower more number of children and youth as independent learners and thinkers. Apply here to be a part of the change.