Arts in Education - Project Kalakaar

Problem Statement

Sustainable development Goal 4, Quality Education aims at ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all. This goal ensures that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary schooling by 2030. Despite growing evidence that children from adversity, conflict zones need life skills and arts in education to break the cycle of negative outcomes and thrive, Indian education institutions struggle to provide these. In addition, children from remote areas, such as Jammu and Kashmir face elevated problems of anxiety, learner loneliness, terrorism, adverse weather, and a digital divide (53% children do not have internet access) forming our most vulnerable demographic. This has resulted in the region having one of the highest primary school drop-out rates and some of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Global deprioritization of the arts deprives our children of these life and SEL skills, and the experience of a quality holistic education. For disadvantaged children-it’s worse-a combination of this status quo and their circumstances (such as poverty, poor mental and physical health, etc.) The region is in dire need for inclusion of arts in children’s education for their mental wellbeing and thrive in life.

Proposed Solution

Global Shapers Jammu Hub have collaborated with JK Arts Foundation for implementation of the Arts in Education - Project Kalakaar. The Shapers support the foundation that aims to develop artistic interventions that supplements the educational curriculum with arts in education solutions promoting higher learner engagement, equitable well-being and instilling 21^st century skills such as creativity, confidence and critical thinking in children from underserved communities. The hub leverages creative learning to democratise arts in education through technology to create content that can be accessed by children across low-tech platforms like WhatsApp and YouTube. The Global Shapers and JK Arts Foundation Fellows work closely in the program implementation.

Hub Activities & Impact

• On-boarded 9 school with 2,000+ children across Jammu & Kashmir.


• Conducted on ground art workshops in collaboration with Global Shapers Srinagar and Jammu Hub.


• Kick started pan Jammu & Kashmir annual art competition.


• More than 1,000 artworks created by student’s active engagement in arts education curriculum.

Short Term & Long Term Goals

Short term Impact:

• On-board 25,000 children from Jammu & Kashmir by 2025 on the JKAF Digital Art School Program.

Long Term Impact:

• Scale-up current operations to achieve pan-India coverage and reach nearly 1 million children by 2030.


• Expand reach of project through Global Shaper cross-hub collaboration.


• Expand advocacy efforts in order to institutionalize arts based education in central  and state governments, large foundations, and partner non-profits.


• Work closely with Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, and Niti Aayog Govt of India to set up a Rapid Prototyping Lab that will allow us to design and test cost-effective innovations in content creation and dissemination.