“In the heart of every child lies a whole universe of potential that is waiting to be nurtured.”
~ Franey Sood – Co-Founder & Director of Kachi Sadak
The Forgotten Window
Before a child turns six, the foundations of learning are already quietly taking shape. A child who feels safe enough to ask questions begins to grow curious. A child who is spoken to, listened to, and engaged with starts building confidence long before formal schooling begins. These early years shape the foundations of literacy, numeracy, communication, and emotional security that children carry into every classroom that follows. This is the window India’s early childhood system was meant to protect. And for decades, it has largely missed the point. As one member of the Kachi Sadak team reflected:
“Anganwadi workers are the first contact with the system. Families go to school later; at five or six years old. But these workers were never equipped to deal with the education and developmental part of the 0 to 6 age window.”
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, which runs the country’s 1.4 million Anganwadi centres, has always been designed around nutrition and basic care. The workers it employs with a minimum qualification of Class 10, hired from their own communities, are trusted data collectors, food distributors, and vaccination trackers. Teaching was never truly in their job description. And so, millions of India’s youngest children arrive at primary school without the foundational skills they need: the ability to communicate, engage, recognise patterns, express curiosity, regulate emotions, and begin reading or counting with confidence.
It is within this neglected space that the Kachi Sadak Foundation works. The organisation understood that improving early childhood learning required supporting Anganwadi workers with the tools, dignity, and companionship the system had long denied them.
The Teacher Ripple Effect
The most powerful insight Kachi Sadak operates from is this: one well-supported educator benefits far more than the twenty children in her Anganwadi. She becomes a part of a wider network of change, influencing how children learn, how parents participate, and how other educators approach their role within the system.
At the heart of Pehle Kadam (‘First Step’); Kachi Sadak’s flagship programme are three-day capacity-building workshops in Chandigarh, the goal is not simply to train individual workers. It is to create Master Trainers, workers who absorb a new philosophy of child-centred education and then carry that philosophy outward to their peers across the system.
“We’re creating around 150 master trainers who can then go and train other Anganwadi workers in Chandigarh. Anganwadi workers are capable enough. They have the experience. The only thing they might be missing is the best practices and educational methods.”
~ Neha Kulshrestha
Program Manager \ Kachi Sadak Foundation
This is the ripple effect in action. A single intervention of three days, around 150 Anganwadi workers and a structured curriculum does not stop at the walls of a training room. It radiates outward.
The workshops themselves are deliberately designed to mirror what good teaching looks like for children. Workers experience obstacle courses, colour-matching games, ice cream stick activities, and physical motor challenges, all of which l designed as embodied learning. The idea is that when a worker feels what it is like to be a curious, engaged learner, she begins to understand what her children need from her.
“Once the activities started, my excitement doubled because I knew it was going to be fun. I learned that to connect with kids, you have to come down to their level; you have to become like a child yourself. “
The Saathi Framework: Change Through Companionship
Most teacher training programmes in India follow a familiar cycle: a workshop, a manual, a certificate, and then goodbye. Kachi Sadak’s Saathi Framework was built to address this design flaw, they offer sustained support where the system had only ever offered a handshake and a certificate.
The word Saathi means companion, and the framework is based on the belief that meaningful change in teaching cannot happen through one-time instruction alone. It requires consistent support, trust, and someone walking alongside the educator over time. As one team member explained:
“A mentor walking alongside, not just telling. Across a multitude of cases, a hand of companionship and compassion was absent. Filling that gap provides more growth than almost anything else.”
Kachi Sadak’s associates act as these Saathis or embedded partners. They regularly visit Anganwadis, help workers navigate classroom challenges, encourage new practices, and support them when they slip back into older routines. Regression is treated as a natural part of the process. An Anganwadi worker operating under constant pressure will naturally return to familiar methods when support disappears. Continued engagement helps keep new practices alive.
This approach has also extended beyond individual classrooms. In Chandigarh, the programme has contributed to the development of nearly 150 master trainers who can further support other Anganwadi workers within the system. The organisation also recognised that support alone would not be enough without structural backing. Through its Paathshala initiative, Kachi Sadak worked with the Social Welfare Department to introduce a mandatory one-hour learning period within Anganwadis so that child-centred learning would not remain optional or disappear once external motivation faded.
Alongside training and mentoring, the organisation places strong emphasis on dignity. Anganwadi workers are often treated as functionaries, their role as educators overlooked entirely, expected to follow instructions without being recognised for their contribution. Kachi Sadak intentionally approaches them differently, involving them as collaborators & active participants in shaping the training itself. As one member of the Kachi Sadak team reflected:
“The lack of dignity and respect is real. When we use the words ‘Anganwadi teachers,’ that word, teacher, provides dignity. But when they are treated as equals, when we discuss and find solutions together, everything changes.”
The workshops are therefore designed to be collaborative and rooted in the workers’ own community knowledge. Over time, Kachi Sadak realised that the change they were building was not only pedagogical, but relational. When educators begin to feel respected within the system, they participate differently, take greater ownership, and eventually begin to teach differently as well.
What Will Still Remain
Even if everything works, even if every Anganwadi in India is redesigned, every worker trained, every parent engaged. Kachi Sadak’s founders are clear-eyed about what will remain unsolved.
“The general perception of education is shaped by politics, gender, class, religion, jobs; everything. Education, like cinema or music, reflects the soul of a society. If that soul is unwell, the classroom alone cannot fix it. “
~ Navdeep Singh
Co-founder & President \ Kachi Sadak Foundation
Poverty will still restrict access to enriching experiences. Migration will still disrupt continuity. Domestic violence will still enter the classroom on the faces of three-year-olds who carry what they witnessed the night before.Kachi Sadak is clear-eyed about the limits of its reach. What the evidence of its work does suggest is that a well-supported teacher, standing with dignity in a well-designed space, surrounded by engaged parents and a functional system, can do something extraordinary.
She can make a child feel safe enough to be curious.
And from curiosity, everything else is possible.