Andy
The Aajibaichi Shala in Thane district has only one room – but its 35-odd students are all elderly women who want to read and write. Here you will see grandmothers going to school, in pink saris, singing nursery rhymes
Many men and women are self-made and many are even late bloomers – beginning their learning and careers at a much later phase in life than the rest. Age could not defy the beauty of learning and achieving for such seekers.
Kantabai More and Sitabai Deshmukh would attest to this, as living and learning examples.
In the heart of a village called Phangane, in Thane district of Mumbai, India you will find nursery rhymes, prayers, and the Marathi alphabet being chanted by young students in pink uniforms. The uniqueness of this school is in the fact that these young students are aged anywhere between 60 to 90. School bags, black slates, and white chalk have brought independence to many mother-in-laws and grandmothers.
Aajibaichi Shala is a school for almost 30 grannies and it was founded on International Womens’ Day (8 March), 2016 by Yogendra Bangar, a 45-year-old teacher at the Fangane Zila Parishad Primary school, in a collaboration with Dilip Dalal, the founder of Motilal Dalal Charitable Trust. It is the first of it’s kind in India.
Check out other stories about the Grandma school:
Grandmas go to school in this hamlet: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/grandmas-go-to-school-in-this-hamlet/article17330290.ece
This school in Thane provides education to grandmothers, oldest student aged 90: https://yourstory.com/2017/01/school-in-thane-provides-education-to-grandmothers/
Inside India’s Only School For Grannies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2tawjyp48
