Dream School Foundation

Dream School Foundation is an education nonprofit established in Bangalore in 2005 by a group of volunteers. It works to break the cycle of socio-economic vulnerability among children and families through equity and quality in education, under the statement "Making the Right to Education Real". It works closely with the state Education Department and describes its work as aligned with the National Education Policy of the Government of India. Its stated commitment is to assist students from "schools to livelihood", which has led it to extend support for young people up to the age of 24. Its approach is rights-based and inclusive, with emphasis on stakeholder participation, early capacity building and knowledge transfer so that changes outlast the intervention. It places specific emphasis on girls, combining academic support with mentoring, leadership training and decision-making skills.

Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Major Areas of Work

• Government school quality: Improving school management systems, teacher capacity and classroom learning levels in state-run schools.

• Dropout prevention and continuity: Identifying children at risk of dropping out at the higher primary stage and supporting them to complete school and move into higher or vocational education.

• Higher education access: Financial assistance, academic coaching and career counselling for students from low-income families entering university or vocational streams.

• Livelihood and employability: Skills, finishing school style training and enterprise support for educated and semi-educated youth and for community women.

• STEM and digital learning: Dedicated STEM education work in schools, including computer labs and devices for students who lack them.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Transformational Youth Development Engagement (TYDE): Assists, mentors and monitors children susceptible to dropping out from the higher primary stage onward, adding financial assistance, coaching at its centres, career counselling, group and one-on-one mentoring by corporate volunteers and alumni, and finishing school enrolment.

• School Transformation Engagement Programme (STEP): Works inside government schools on management processes, teacher capacity building and direct classroom learning activity, and engages parents, communities and volunteers on questions of school quality and equity.

• Livelihood and Employment Assistance Programme (LEAP): Equips educated and semi-educated youth, and community women, with skills to find and sustain income, aimed at making participants ready for immediate employment.

• Aarohi: An enterprise under LEAP, named from the Sanskrit for "the one who ascends", where young artisans make hand-painted and hand-embroidered laptop sleeves, tote bags, zari purses and pouches from natural and upcycled materials, with proceeds going back into education and livelihood work.

• Graduate Scholarship Programme: Scholarships of INR 20,000 to 40,000 per year for Bengaluru students who passed higher secondary with 80% or above and whose family income is under INR 3 lakh a year, combined with personal coaching, mentoring and transformational workshops.

TYDE is the organisation's spine. It begins with children at the elementary and higher primary stage and continues through school completion, college or vocational training, and into a first job, with the same student handheld across that whole arc rather than at a single stage. The programme runs both an urban track through Transformational Youth Development Centres in Bengaluru and a rural track in Karnataka that prepares government school students for the National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship examination.

Leadership

• Maitreyee Kumar, Founder and Executive Director

• Sabu Joseph, Founder and Director

• Archana D. Hosangadi, Director, Finance

• Sagayaraj S, Manager, Head of Programmes and Operations

The work suits someone who wants to follow the same students over years rather than run a short project. A role here touches government schools, direct student coaching, scholarship administration and a small product enterprise, so the exposure spans classroom practice, programme operations and community engagement in both urban Bengaluru and rural Karnataka. It fits people comfortable working alongside government systems, corporate volunteers and donors at the same time, and who measure progress by whether a student reaches a livelihood, not by an activity count.