The majority of our children are ‘first generation learners’, meaning they are the first in their families to go to school. Of course, they and their parents know a great deal of things, so the phrase isn’t very accurate; it is a reflection of the over-riding perspective to learning – one only learns when taught, most frequently in school. We know this not to be true though, so at Hunar Ghar we teach to build on what local communities already know, not displace it.

For our pedagogy we draw influence from and adapt existing methods to make them work in the context of the community we work with. For our first generation school-goers, this means turning the abstract bookish-knowledge predominant in most schools into something more tangible, with practical relevance to the lives of the children. This is why we use play-based and activity-based learning where possible, as a way to allow children to experience learning.