For Kshama Hastak, the journey into the social sector did not begin with a carefully designed plan. It began much earlier, at home, where she watched her parents care for animals, help people in need and share whatever they had, even when resources were limited. During her summer holidays, her mother would gather children from nearby slums and ask Kshama, who loved teaching, to teach them. Kshama would give them slates, share her comic books and turn the experience into a small library.
Years later, while working at Amity University, Kshama noticed a group of children begging around the university. She began speaking to them and giving them something to eat. After several months, she realised that while she may not have had many resources, she had something she could give them: education.
That realisation eventually led to Sarthak Foundation, an organisation working with children from some of the most marginalised communities.
A Journey That Began With Two Days A Week
Kshama had completed her bachelor’s and master’s in management before beginning her corporate career. She later moved into academics. The desire to do something meaningful remained somewhere in the back of her mind, but her professional responsibilities kept taking priority. Her interactions with children around Amity University changed that.
She decided to spend her Saturdays and Sundays teaching children in their communities. She spoke to their parents and made no promises beyond her availability. “As long as I’m in Lucknow, these two days I’ll definitely come every week, and I will teach for 3–4 hours.”
The children, some around eight or ten years old and never previously enrolled in school, responded well to education. Kshama then approached friends to help get some of the children admitted to nearby low-fee private schools. What started with six or seven children gradually became a larger effort as students and others who saw her work began joining as volunteers. Today, each Yellow Rooms delivers 12 hours of digitally aided, activity based sessions on STEM, languages, health, social emotional wellness, job readiness and much more, every day. And they do this all year round, for years and years. Yellow Rooms ensure each child is enrolled in a formal school and completes her education and play a pivotal role in stopping early marriages and early pregnancies and reducing alcohol abuse and domestic violence.
“That entire thing that I think was kind of there in the subconscious, it just came out,” she said while speaking to The Logical Indian. Sarthak Foundation was registered in 2010, while its programme work began in 2013.
Building A Long-Term Approach To Education
Today, Sarthak works through three established programmes: Yellow Rooms, Yellow Slates and Gurukul. Yellow Rooms is its flagship, community-based programme, while Yellow Slates brings smaller versions of the model into government schools. Gurukul is a rural school, again modelled on Yellow Rooms, serving children from highly marginalised communities, with children from more than 100 villages travelling there to study every day.
The organisation is also introducing Empower, a programme intended to take the journey beyond schooling. Sarthak works with communities that include daily wage workers, vendors, ragpickers and beggars, aiming to ensure that children receive formal education and can subsequently move towards higher education and employment. For Kshama, education is therefore not an isolated intervention. It is part of a longer journey towards independence.
Learning What Not To Do
Building an organisation in the social sector also meant learning a new system from scratch. When Kshama began, she did not come from the not-for-profit sector, and she found that information about processes such as applying for 80G or FCRA was not as readily accessible.
But another challenge came from the communities themselves. Once she began working closely with them, the list of things that needed attention seemed endless.
“You feel you can do you should do this also, you should do this for the parents, this for the children. So it’s an endless bucket list of what you want to do for the children.”
The challenge, she explained, was learning to recognise the limits of an organisation’s capacity and deciding where it could create meaningful impact.
Education also demanded patience. Unlike providing food, where the result can be seen immediately, education takes years to show its impact. Many of Sarthak’s children are first-generation learners, making it equally important to build trust with children, families and supporters while staying committed to a long-term vision.
Reaching Communities Where Help Has Not Reached
Sarthak currently works across Lucknow, Barabanki, Sitapur, Greater Gautam Buddha Nagar, including Noida, and Shahjahanpur.
Its Yellow Rooms operate inside communities, including slums and interior villages. Each Yellow Rooms has two full-time educators. A programme coordinator oversees three Yellow Rooms, while programme managers supervise clusters of coordinators. Above them are the programme director and CEO, with the CEO handling operations and the programme director overseeing quality.
The organisation currently operates Yellow Rooms across 48 communities.
While speaking to The Logical Indian, Kshama explained that Sarthak deliberately avoids working in communities where another NGO is already present. “There is no paucity of how many slums and villages exist in India. So that’s why we always reach out to absolutely where there is no help and no support.”
A Vision Of Happy, Empowered Children
Sarthak’s stated vision is simple: “happy, empowered children. ”For Kshama, empowerment has both financial and social dimensions. The goal is for children to eventually become financially independent and help their families move out of intergenerational poverty. But financial independence alone is not enough. Social relationships, values and attitudes towards gender are also part of the empowerment journey.
The organisation’s future goals are centred on sustaining the Yellow Rooms it has already established while taking the programme to more children in need. Sarthak is looking at expanding the model within Uttar Pradesh and, in the future, into Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Kshama’s journey began with a few children, two days a week and a belief that education could become something she gave back. Over time, that small commitment developed into a structured organisation focused on helping children move from marginalisation towards education, social-emotional resilience, and employment.
For her, the work is ultimately about creating the conditions for children to build more empowered futures.
The Logical Indian Perspectives
Kshama Hastak’s journey raises an important question about how meaningful social change begins. It does not always start with an institution, a large programme or a predefined plan. Sometimes, it begins with recognising a problem close to us and asking what we can personally contribute.
Sarthak Foundation’s approach also highlights the importance of long-term commitment in education. When children are first-generation learners, creating change requires sustained engagement with children, families and communities rather than short-term interventions.
Could sustained access to education, higher education and employment become a stronger pathway for breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty?
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