Aksara Foundation, a non-for-profit organization that seeks to educate and empower 21st century girl has began the journey to actualize its vision and inspiration by donating to Iyana Ipaja Girls Junior Grammar School a refurbish ICT room set up, over 20 computers, security wall set up, air conditioners and scholarship for four students.
The foundation that is still in its infancy and conceptualization face took the initiative to raise the 21th century leaders in public school in Nigeria by refurbishing the dilapidated computer room and expand it therefore, equipping the school with over 20 modern computer sets.
Speaking at the commissioning of the computer room and other donations to the school, Mrs. Gulnar Vaswani, founder of Aksara Foundation, said that the foundation is seeking to redefine how students view leadership, and are being taught to face the 21st century challenges rather than the usual curriculum that is not, in her opinion, adequately preparing for the students for the future they will inherit.
She said “Aksara Foundation is talking about competencies, skills, learnings and paradigms that are not covered by most curriculums either at the university level or undergraduate level or high school level or junior high level,” adding that “no one is taught the skills that we need to survive and thrive in today’s global complex technology connected world.”
According Mrs. Vaswani, “Education is still teaching for the 18th century, students are still learning by exams, teachers are rating intelligence by the highest score, and they are still saying that the smartest girl or boy deserves the scholarship. We think differently,” she said.
“We think that there are other drivers of success that education is not capturing. We want to help build those skills, talents and competencies and make the students understand that they are all leaders and they all have untapped potential to give whether they are A, B, C or D students it doesn’t matter,” Aksara Foundation boss enthused.
Speaking on the choice of the school, the elated Mrs. Vaswani who vowed to continue to give back to school with appropriate maintenance discipline said, “The selection of the school was based on appropriate numbers of students, it must be a public school, decent security record and to kick start with school within our area of operation, which is Ikeja in Lagos.”
She said, “Selection started with when we said we wanted to partner with a school that has maximum of number of students and schools around our head office. Because we are in Ikeja and we tour schools around Ikeja and Agege axis and we found this school- Iyana Ipaja Junior Girls Grammar School, which is a big school with a large number of students and we choose help this school.”
She thanked the principal, the vice principal and the school management for giving us the opportunity to serve them.
Speaking on ensuring the good use of the computer and ICT room, Mrs. Vaswani said, “We will be paying unscheduled visit to the school to ensure that these equipment are properly and appropriately put to use.”
On the scholar given to four students of the school, the Askara Foundation boss said, to ensure that these students get their educational supports, which is accrue due to the scholarship, these four students are required to submit their result at the end of every term in order to assess their performances.”
On how the foundation evolves, Mrs. Vaswani said, “It is to help empower and educate girl child leaders for the 21st century and it is still at the conceptualization start up phase. It came from the vision to give back and do good in the society, we should be able to back fill what education hasn’t kept up with to meet the need of the current changes and complexities of the globalized world.”
Aksara Foundation is an Non Governmental Organisation dedicated to the development and progression of high potential girls and women in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), leadership and entrepreneurship.
