TFIx’s high-touch incubation program: Providing Education Entrepreneurs access to experts and support structures for a vibrant Educational-Equity movement

Mumbai  : TFIx Incubation Program – A year-long incubation program for passionate Ed-Entrepreneurs who want to adopt the Teach For India Fellowship model into their context, TFIx was created to extend the reach of the Fellowship model to underserved children across the country, specifically in remote and vulnerable regions.

TFIx has incubated 45 Ed-Entrepreneurs since 2017. Currently, TFIx incubated Entrepreneurs are running 23 Fellowships with 877 Fellows (teachers) across 13 different states of India reaching thousands of children.

As part of Teach For India, TFIx is working toward a shared vision – One day all children will attain an excellent education, enabling an India that is free of poverty and filled with love.

• TFIx is a growth model of Teach For India.
• The program in the short term offers support to Education Entrepreneurs across the country with launching and sustaining contextualized fellowship programs in their regions. These fellowships will provide opportunities to local youth to take ownership of themselves and lead the community around them, so that even the most marginalized child in India has access to an excellent equitable education.
• TFIx’s Incubation Program provides support structures and guides Ed- Entrepreneurs through personalized coaching, Learning Circles (residential training), site visits, webinars, peer-learning, access to mentors and experts to develop relevant knowledge, skills, and mindsets to build and launch a contextualized, high impact and sustainable Teaching Fellowship Model. It also focuses on building local leadership by developing ‘Fellows’ (teachers) as an important component to help sustain the community.
• The Teach For North East Fellowship is an example of the successful implementation of the model. By bridging learning gaps, improving student outcomes, and transforming schools, the Fellowship works in rural areas of Manipur in some of the country’s most conflict-ridden regions.

“One of the things that have stood out to me is the need to support students of diverse needs. This has translated into the strengthening of our belief to launch the Fellowship, nurturing inclusion champions, and creating an ecosystem of support in the space of education. I had multiple conversations with different people and they all echoed this sentiment” – Sajida Vadgama, 2019 Cohort, TFIx, Founder of Ummeed.

Every year, the TFIx cohort comprises a wide array of Entrepreneurs that work in different geographies and social contexts of India with children. Some of these children have been subject to abuse, have worked as waste pickers, are HIV infected and affected, and have not been able to access schooling across rural India. Our 2021 cohort represents ideas like Learning amidst Conflict, Rural & Slum education, Night-Schools, learning through Alternative Curriculums, and Civic Action, which will touch the lives of approximately 62,000 children.

Applications open for TFIx 2022-23!

We are very excited to announce that this year, we are again scaling and strengthening our movement towards ed-equity to reach the last child in India. If your solution is related to education and impacts India’s children in any form, we encourage you to apply for the TFIx 2022 cohort.

Refer Entrepreneurs from your networks working with underserved children.

Sneha Charitable Trust (Bengaluru) – Incubated by TFIx (2020)

Orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV remain severely stigmatised in Indian society. This often leads to emotional, educational, and occupational difficulties in the long run—all of which Sneha Charitable Trust’s two-year I’MPossible Fellowship aims to gradually solve for. SCT is led by Michael Babu Raj, a TFIx 2020 Entrepreneur. Currently SCT engages between 10 to 15 HIV-positive adolescents and youths between the ages of 18 to 23 as Fellows and Mentors under the I’MPossible Fellowship and trains them to replicate their experiences for 350 more children in Karnataka. This is towards ensuring their quality of life and future by comprehensively addressing their needs for education, health, psycho-social support, and vocational training.

Vikalpa, Society for Sustainable Development (Nagpur) – Incubated by TFIx (2020)

With an aim to create an affordable and replicable model of global rural school in Nagpur, Maharashtra which places its emphasis on hands-on experience, holistic development, and developing sense of curiosity and innovation, Ganesh Birajdar, a TFIx 2020 Entrepreneur is working to create the next generation of Agripreneurs. Through his organisation Vikalpa, Society for Sustainable Development running the Learning Companions Fellowship program, they are working to create a movement of leaders who are building inclusive and engaging classrooms to equip the 400 children they’re reaching to be independent, skillful and resourceful enough to prepare themselves well for a job or to find some dignified means of livelihood on their own.