Bridge School Programs

Every day, thousands of families migrate to Bangalore for work, settling in slums and working as laborers, waste pickers, domestic helpers, and street vendors. Their children, aged 6–14, often miss out on education because they don’t speak Kannada, making it hard to enroll in local schools. Many stay home unsupervised, at risk of child labor, substance abuse, and other dangers.

The Bridge Program helps these children by providing a one-year informal education to prepare them for formal schooling. The program is free and offers basic education in a multilingual and flexible environment. Once students join a school, the program continues supporting them by covering half of their tuition fees and providing after-school tutoring.

Program Objectives

  • Education Access: Teach out-of-school children in a simple, adaptable way.
  • School Integration: Help them enroll in mainstream English or Kannada medium schools.
  • Breaking the Poverty Cycle: Education leads to better job opportunities in the future.

How It Works

  1. Survey: Identify out-of-school children in slums.
  2. Set Up Schools: Create learning centers in slums or nearby government schools.
  3. Teach: Intensive six-hour daily classes for a year.
  4. Transition: Help children join formal schools. Parents contribute part of the school fee, and the rest is funded by donors.

This program ensures that every child, no matter where they come from, has a chance for a better future through education.