We created the Jijivisha Fellowship after observing a critical gap in education for marginalized communities in India. Traditional schooling focused narrowly on literacy and numeracy, while essential life skills like curiosity, imagination, and analytical thinking were severely neglected. When we began working in under-resourced schools post pandemic, we saw countless children with rich thinking but limited vocabulary struggle to engage through conventional teaching methods.
Arts provided the solution – a universal language that doesn't require advanced literacy to access. A child who couldn't articulate their understanding verbally could demonstrate complex thinking through visual art or theater.
What began as arts integration evolved into a systematic approach for developing transferable skills. Our assessment data confirmed what we observed: children were building the same foundational competencies that drive academic achievement and life success.
In our quest to move closer to the truth on the ground, we designed and tested competency-based assessments focusing on socio-emotional constructs this year. These were built on the principles of “SHOW” and offer significant advantages over traditional perception-based/Likert (TELL) tests.
The innovation addresses a fundamental inequity: ensuring that all children, regardless of their starting point, have the opportunity to develop the essential skills they need to thrive
In a classroom implementing the Jijivisha Fellowship, you'll find a carefully selected fellow working with 6 classrooms weekly, transforming traditional art periods into dynamic skill-building sessions. Each 60-90 minute session follows a structured progression while remaining responsive to student needs.
Our fellows don't just stop at the classroom door - they bring art into the whole school community. Through teacher circles and parent sessions, they create spaces where everyone in a child's life can connect through creativity.
Platforming
The journey from creating art in a safe classroom to sharing it publicly builds a kind of confidence that transfers everywhere.
Community Art Projects (CAPs)—carefully designed initiatives that apply students' developing skills to address local issues or celebrate community strengths. These projects take diverse forms based on context: in one community, students might create family zines documenting generational knowledge; in another, they might produce podcasts where mothers share their stories; elsewhere, they might develop environmental awareness films about local challenges.
Our rigorous selection process identifies exceptional educators and artists from a competitive pool—just 17 fellows chosen from over 900 applicants. These dedicated professionals complete 332+ hours of comprehensive professional development (including training, check-ins, observations and debriefs) annually, creating measurable impact in student outcomes.
In 2023-24, over one-third of students (36.6%) advanced a full level or more (>25% gain) in curiosity skills, while 16.2% in analytical thinking and 27% in imagination. Building on this success, In 2024-25 showed roughly one-third of students (32.9%) advanced atleast a full level or more (>25% gain) in curiosity, while 35.5% students grew in imagination 32.5% in emotional awareness.
Our expansion strategy is evidence-driven, with program evolution guided by outcomes from each implementation year.
Data-Driven Skill Assessment: We have created an assessment framework that measures observable indicators of SEL skills – tracking questioning abilities in curiosity, detailing capacity in imagination, and emotional labeling in awareness – rather than relying on self-ratings. This approach to measuring typically "unmeasurable" skills has already earned recognition from Bloomberg, Dasra, and Techforgood through the D4GX initiative. We're preparing for third-party validation through randomized controlled trials to further strengthen our evidence base.
Program Evolution Journey
During the part-time phase of this fellowship, we had 10+ instructions hours (which also accounted for the only touchpoints we had with students), minimal training for fellows, basic assessment tools (self-assessed), and a curriculum designed nationally (not contextual).
By converting it into a full-time intervention, we have been able to get 25+ instructional hours with each classrooms (excluding small group and 1-1 time available throughout the week), 300+ hours of training for fellows, comprehensive assessment framework (orally administered where required) and curriculum that is deeply contextual to each school and classroom. The full-time model has also enabled deeper integration of climate into our curriculum (rooting it in a local sense of environment) and the introduction of Community Art Projects. Additionally, the fellows presence in the school throughout the week has enabled curation of teacher wellbeing circles, parent learning circles, and home visits (to understand each child’s context and lived experience). All of these measures look at the child and their development more holistically, within their context, while keeping all the immediate stakeholders engaged.
Contact jijivisha@slamoutloud.org to explore partnership opportunities. Schools can join as implementation partners. Educators can apply for the fellowship (applications open annually). Organizations interested in our methodology can discuss potential collaborations. We provide resources and training for those looking to integrate arts-based approaches into existing educational programs.
