Mauka means many things to many people.
To some, it means a second chance, an opportunity, an opening..
To some it means to teach, to educate, to awaken, to inspire, to lead...
To live in harmony, a chance to relive, re-look, reflect on the past,
re-plan the future
A chance to change yourself, change the environment around,
An undefined, unbounded space
A freedom to express!
Mauka is a platform for underprivileged youth to fulfil their dreams (or atleast come close to it!) Mauka runs classes providing informal education in English, Hindi, Computers and Graphic Design to develop creativity based employment and entrepreneurial competencies among underprivileged youth.
Design education in India is very expensive, and Mauka allows youth from low income backgrounds to build skills to access creativity based jobs, proving that they may be deprived of financial resources but do not lack innate creativity.
Mauka also aims to foster confidence, stimulate positive attitudes and awareness on active citizenship among youth. At the same time Mauka is a sustainable for-profit social enterprise, generating revenue through provision of graphic design services to clients.
Mauka began in July 2009 in Rajpur, Dehradun, where a collective of local youth from disadvantaged backgrounds started meeting to share their ideas. Today, Mauka provides a listening post for their issues and concerns and the youth continue to gather every two weeks to watch movies, sing songs, hold competitions, discuss environment, gender violence, ragging, unemployment etc.- issues that bother them, and issues that they are keen to address and understand better.
Mauka invites professionals from diverse backgrounds to come and share their work and experiences with this enthusiastic group of young people.
Mauka is supported by the Commutiny Youth Collective (http://www.commutiny.in/) and lead by Joshua Hishey, a young design professional and social entreprenuer at Studio Alaya.(www.studioalaya.com)
Here are some images from one of the workshops at Mauka in July 2009
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