MakerGhat aims to develop a MAKER MINDSET among youth. We encourage youth to develop a sense of agency and confidence to address local and global problems. They not only learn technical and soft skills but also think about, design, and implement solutions to challenges in their communities and beyond.
Our Vision : Creating Community Leaders
Creating Community Leaders At MakerGhat, we envision a world where communities solve their own challenges. By creating safe, resource-rich spaces with dedicated mentors, we empower individuals from underserved communities and diverse backgrounds to become leaders. Our goal is to foster social and economic change at the grassroots level, ultimately becoming an incubator for youth-led social and commercial enterprises.
Why Make?
Making is a powerful practice for several reasons.
It connects with and views with respect and dignity the historic practices of crafts, repair, agriculture, small businesses, and other hands-on activities that are part of the daily environment for the vast majority of students in India.
It offers concrete and tangible results to youth which builds confidence when their worth is too frequently tied to grades. Students become co-creators of knowledge and products, not merely consumers.
There is sound evidence on maker education’s ability to deliver learning outcomes on critical thinking, problem solving, and risk-taking.
It requires minimal resources to get started, and can be adapted fairly easily to connect with the context that students are in.
Our maker culture is…
Community-Centric
Young people provide the human resources and energy for driving the various activities at MakerGhat. They identify the challenges and potential solutions that are most compelling and relevant to them and their communities.
Collaborative
Young people not only use the resources of the makerspace to generate original products but also help and inspire others to realize their ideas. We also develop partnerships between students, researchers, social enterprises, domain experts, and more around the world to support projects.
Inclusive
We are particularly interested in supporting populations for whom opportunities to engage in such activities may be limited. We plan the location, timings, and costs of our programs to enable as many people to attend as possible, especially girls, and youth in rural areas or going to government schools.
Self-Driven
We provide scaffolding to the point where students are able to advance their own learning. We “graduate” students from MakerGhat so that they can pursue their own careers. We hope to create a domino effect where alumni of MakerGhat go on to inspire others in their communities.
We are also committed to sharing our curriculum, materials, and other program resources with individuals, communities, and organizations. Our model and materials have been contextualized to Indian settings, and may need further adaptation locally, which we are happy to assist with.