Foundation for Initiatives in Development and Education for All (IDEA), was the result of a bright idea to educate the underprivileged children that traversed from germination to conceptualization stage and was finally realized due to efforts of a dedicated team of social scientists and welfare workers. Their efforts continue to be motivated by their mission to do good for the underprivileged children by creating a society that gives them equal and ample opportunities to lead a happier life.
Dr. Usha Pillai, one of the founding members of IDEA foundation, was pursuing her PhD on ‘Reasons and interventions taken by NGOs and government for addressing the issue of school dropouts’, when she realized that the results were not at all encouraging. The results of a field study revealed the shocking rise in the number of underprivileged students dropping out from schools. The situation demanded action, merely research was not going to suffice. The need for an institution to eliminate these discrepancies and work for the betterment of the society was evident. IDEA came into existence in the year 2002 to address this need.
‘Every child is different and so is their reason to drop out from school’ – this is one of the core principles of every initiative that we undertake at IDEA. Our experts invest paramount efforts to understand the different requirements of underprivileged children and therefore motivate them to complete their education. Working on the belief of identifying individual requirements of underprivileged children and providing a holistic support environment to help them overcome their difficulties, currently, we cater to more than 2000 students across several slums in and around Pune. Our initiatives to facilitate the education of underprivileged children have also helped in curbing the social evil of child labor to a great extent. We consider these changes as one of the biggest rewards for our efforts. After all, our sole focus at IDEA is on ensuring a happier future for the thousands of underprivileged children that have been deprived their fare chance due to several reasons.
