About us

Prayaas is Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) students' initiative to provide education to children living in slums around IIMA and enable them to merge in the social mainstream.

It was started in 2004 as part of a student project in a course and have been carried forward from there by the following batches. The new campus was being built around this time in the institute and some students wanted to make a difference to the lives of the children of the workers involved in all the construction activity. They started with small steps which over a period of time formulated into the desire to make a permanent impact in the lives of such children through the medium of education.

They gathered these children as well others from the slums near the campus and helped in their education as much as possible. It was felt that the continuity would be maintained if the succeeding batches are involved who would take the initiative forward. It is hard to imagine that you would not find at least some students in a reputed B-school (or for that matter in any premier institution) who are willing to give back to society in some way or the other. So, the wheel started rolling and the legacy continues.

Each batch took it a step further and the scope grew gradually. Currently, the vision is to get these children into mainstream schools and let education blossom their lives. In the academic year 2007-08, 17 students were admitted to a private main-stream school called Sahajanand school. Seeing the good performance of these students, the school authorities kindly agreed to incorporate another 14 students in 2008-09. The students study in the 1st to 5th standards as of now.

Through this forum, we want to provide an update on what all the team has been doing and how has been the progress of the initiative. The blog is aimed to act as a source of information for everyone interested so that they can get to know what is happening with respect to the initiative. Also, it would allow flow of suggestions / recommendations in an easier fashion and would enable people to get in touch to contribute / volunteer.