We are Arunima, Mantra, and Rohita—the artists, crazy creatives, the big dreamers. We each have a personal connection with art. We use art to express ourselves, use it as a tool to think creatively and ideate, problem-solve, it’s an outlet on the frustrating days and a tool to identify our emotions and unpack our thoughts. You can find us at some art workshops, galleries, museums, concerts, or any performing spaces often; we love anything and everything creative. We have had the privilege of learning and interacting with various forms of arts. But not all of us got to learn art in our schools and were often told art can just be a hobby, which is pursued in our spare time and does not really have much impact on developing our important competences. Which proved to be so wrong by the way, as we use art in one way or the other till date. And becoming an “artist” was never an option either growing up.

As Teach For India fellows in 2019, we saw our students were being fed the same stories even then, so we decided to take matters into our own hands. We started by introducing a few art forms in our classrooms through our project, Kalakriti. We would take our students out for art exposure events and created a showcase platform for them to exhibit their artistic talent. Artent Education Foundation was born out of this with an aim to make art a mainstream subject in schools so every student in our country can become creative thinkers, problem solvers, who will have a tool to choose how they learn and fully exploit the transferable technical and soft skills in arts. Learning art as art in itself has so much potential.

We dream of a world where art is celebrated as a core subject in schools and every child has a choice to pursue art beyond schools, even as a career if they wish to. No child will ever be told art is just a hobby, it has no power to solve problems, or how it does not pay the bills and is only for the rich & privileged. #artforart #artforall