Dr Nita Mukherjee documents an NGO that’s helping meet the challenges of Mumbai’s night-school students

Nikita Ketkar, the founder of Masoom, stumbled upon the idea of helping night-school students in 2001. She was deputed by the Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Services on a project to identify domestic child workers in Mumbai night schools. Nikita says, “I came across self-motivated students. They worked during the day and attended evening classes. They came because they wanted to learn. It was sad to see that they lacked the basic facilities that could do justice to their aspirations.” In 2006, Nikita undertook further research on the subject under a PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) scholarship. The research revealed the appalling condition of these students: Often they did not have the basic educational materials and infrastructure—there were no books; no workbooks; so the question of having science labs was a distant dream. So moved was Nikita by the plight of these highly motivated students and their lack of access to the basics that she gave up her civil service career and took up their cause as a mission. Her entire team of six researchers, some of whom had previously studied at night schools, joined in. Masoom was set up in January 2008.

Night schools are run in municipal school premises from 6:30pm to 9:30pm; most kids come after long hours of work. Masoom provides meals for these students. Nikita adds, “We want to improve not just their academic knowledge but also employability. Many students, who earlier had to study on an empty stomach, could not focus. Sometimes, it is the only meal they have in the day.”
Masoom has a three-pronged approach to facilitate learning for night-school students:
1. Providing infrastructure like computers, science labs, maths kits, library books, notebooks, educational charts, workbooks and worksheets, teacher-training material, and audio-visual material;
2. Capacity building through training and workshops for teachers, parents and students, vocational guidance for students, counselling, extra-curricular classes for life-skills, yoga, meditation, etc;
3. Masoom works closely with all stakeholders and intends to act as an advocate for all issues concerning night schools.

Masoom began operations with a small grant of Rs60,000 from UnLtd—an organisation that funds start-up social entrepreneurs. “Their non-financial support was more valuable than the money: It gave us the opportunity to run our pilot and provide proof of concept for further funding,” says Nikita. EdelGive Foundation, a subsidiary of Edelweiss, provided the first major funding—Rs16 lakh—for starting off with two schools. Masoom now has grants from other foundations too, but, as Nikita says, they are lucky that most of their funding agencies also provide volunteers. Although Masoom has only 12 employees, it has 25 volunteers. So far, Masoom has been able to help some 650-700 students in 10 schools.
Masoom has innovated mobile labs for night-school students. Most municipal schools lack science lab facilities; hence, the question of providing them for night schools does not arise. “We were fortunate to have RR Sarode, an award-winning lab assistant in DS High School (Sion, Mumbai), who has converted a computer table on wheels into a science lab. Students of 8th to 10th  standards can now do important practicals. The lab is kept in the headmaster’s room. Generally, getting permission from municipal school authorities is a major hurdle. But we got a lot of support from Suman Shinde, an education inspector of municipal schools, who said we must develop these mobile labs for all the 10 schools,” says Nikita.

Masoom is a registered trust with Section 80G exemption and welcomes your involvement with money, materials or your time and skills. A chart on their website gives details of how your donations could support night schools.