About Us

Vision

A society where children have safe and inclusive space to develop in human, just and peaceful manner.

Mission

KET is striving for equality in gender, education, freedom, participation and development of every child and youth by supporting with life skills, counselling and educational support.

About Kadam Education Trust (KET)

Kadam means “A Step”.

KET strives for equality in gender, education, freedom, participation and development of every child and youth. During the journey of working social development sector the leadership of KET learned that, life skill education is an important aspect for the development of every child in the fast moving and technological transformative world. The vicissitudes developed many challenging situations for children and parents in different spheres like family, neighbourhood, school, coaching class and many more. Another big factor emerging is; changing scenario of economic condition due to uncertain jobs, limited availability of work in private and public sectors and no assured social security schemes, affects the families of poor, middle or higher middle-class strata very seriously. Overall, all these issues create instability in family. Now, in this scenario the priorities and needs of children come at last. This situation affects the mental development of young people. They have to face mental, verbal, physical violence from family members and at various engagements or interactions.

In India, poverty and socioeconomic disparities play a crucial role in developing and exacerbating mental health disorders in India. Limited resources, including access to quality healthcare, mental health services and essential social support systems, significantly impact mental well-being.

KET has three programs, (Interventions)

Education support

Empowering Futures Through Education and Care

Transforming lives by supporting the education of underprivileged children and youth.
Rescuing and empowering children from vulnerable situations, with a special focus on girls.
Funding education fees directly to schools and providing additional academic support.
Collaborating with civil society to drive impactful initiatives like the Pasti collection.

Nutritional food support

Nourishing Lives, Nurturing Futures

Ensuring access to essential, nutrient-rich food for physical growth.
Supporting families with limited access to nutritious meals.
Providing raw rations rich in protein, carbohydrates, and iron.
Sustaining long-term support to combat malnutrition effectively.

Mental health and counselling

Caring for Minds, Changing Lives

Supporting mental health amid stress and modern challenges.
Providing counseling to guide youth through emotional struggles.
Addressing harmful impacts of technology and social media.
Creating a safe space for personal growth and improved relationships.

1. Education support

The activity of education of slum-under privileged children was informally started before 4 years of formal registration. Money obtained by collection of Pasti and other non-usable items like junk bottles, utensils, etc. was used to pay fees of these children. The pioneer of Kadam Ms. Meera Mehta Malek started small education centers in Ganeshnagar, Piplaj. About 125 children were given supportive education and then put in main stream. These children were mainly orphans, single parent children, children begging on streets, children of sex workers, child laborers and dropouts.

When the people displaced from the river front, were given space in Piplaj for their stay, the number of children increased. One episode shook Meera ben from the core. One girl coming to the Kadam center had to be rescued from child trafficking. This was possible by the alertness and timely action by the teachers-cum-Bal dosts of Kadam namely Rajni, Sajeda and Savitaben. After this incident, the eagerness to do much more for these children and especially the girls rose tremendously. Need was felt, and the informal activity was formalized and Kadam Education Trust was registered.

Pasti is now regularly collected from Individuals and societies like Sumadhur II Ambawadi, Basant Bahar II Bopal, Elite Flats Sahibaug; Nebula Towers S. G. Highway etc. to name a few. All activities of Pasti collection is carried out by the support of civil society members and Bal dosts named above. Last year education of 46 children was sponsored and they were admitted to private Guajarati medium schools. This year Kadam has a target of 100 children – focusing mainly on the girl child.

All the civil society supporters of Kadam have formed a formal Group and meet regularly each month. All the people work in harmony with one single view – how we can change the life of these children.

Children who require financial support to complete their education, KET pays their fees directly in schools. KET also helps children during their academic years if they need any other support.

Total ______ children over _____ years have been supported by paying fees of Rs. _____ in various schools.

2. Nutritional food support

Nutrition is important aspect for the physical growth of any child. The families KET is working are poor and have limited food wich has high value of nutrition. Organization provides raw ration like Maze, Moong, Tuver Dal, rice, Khajoor, which has high volume of protein, carbohydrates, iron and other nutritious ingredients.

Total 234 children have been supported by providing nutritional food over the period of 6 years.

This support is not one time to any individual but it continues for a year at least to bring out that child from malnutrition.

3. Mental health and counselling

An alien aspect Mental health is emerging another major issue in recent time. Stress due to many uncertainties like job, income, competition to showcase superiority, malfunctioning of technology, workload, impractical desire and rapidly changing world and technologies pushing individual in a dark gorge. Hundreds of people have ended their life for not able to manage stress and pressure.

If we consider children and youth, the control over usage of technology by them is a big question. Particularly revolution in communication aspect, the world has been changed like nothing. Use of various social media, play stations, freely accessible adult contents and many more have created unbelievable bad impacts in young minds. Bad reading and contents have overcame the good readings and information. Stressed life crating many challenges for these young people.

In this scenario counselling has very important role to play in society. It directly addresses the mental health of any individual. But, to accept and acknowledge the need of mental health treatment is another challenge.

KET provides that space where any child or young person come and share his/her feelings and gets proper inputs on that particular matter. This has helped many girls in improving her relations with parents, family members, peers and provide her to develop professional carrier too.