EvoleED India helping parents engage with children innovatively

Women have a way with children, and it’s no coincidence that our education system continues to be dominated by the fair gender. Despite studying commerce and import-export, Fathima Kader found her true calling with children. She worked with EduMedia India for five years, before starting up herself with EvoleED. At EduMedia, Fathima headed their life skills division and handled sales and marketing for School Cinema. She has now put these skills to use in her own venture.

EvoleED India works with parents to train them in efficient childcare. The startup conducts programs in family counselling, life skills, personal development and child behaviour management among others. We asked her why she chose to startup: “Entrepreneurship is a bug that you live with. You never know when it bites you and leaves you with the urge to explore your way forward. I believe we all come to this world with a vision and purpose and tend to identify, recognize the calling only with time,” says Fathima philosophically. She says there is a great market potential for the kind of work she does because young parents feel the need and are more open to such programmes. “Through my experience of working with children, I realized there was very little emphasis given to educating families and involving them in the education/ learning process. The whole school community benefits when parental engagement is an integral part of school development,” she says.

Started in 2013, the startup offers programmes and workshops for parents and teachers. These courses range from short two-three hour workshops to six week courses, depending on the client’s needs. EvoleED's clientele are parents of children in the age group of 0-16 years and mostly mothers – working and home makers – are the biggest chunk.

The startup has crossed over 125 hours of training with a reach of 1000 parents, teachers and students in and around Bangalore and Mysore city. A team of five people with experience in teaching, training and management make up the EvoleED team. “We prefer people from psychology, HRDM or people who have the insights into the subject. As an organization, we give more importance to people who have the right attitude, are self aware, confident, have high energy, pleasing personality and good communication skills,” says Fathima. She says they are looking at revenues of Rs 3 crores in the next five years.

EvoleED has also partnered with schools and institutions to offer their courses and is currently working on developing a curriculum exclusively for schools which focuses on parents and teacher education. Fathima says partnerships with educational institutions will be an important step for their growth in the future. Team expansion by hiring business associates across the country and international markets is also on the cards, she says.

A big part of success in the future would depend upon the partnerships they can build and maintain. EvoleED is, therefore, investing time in conducting campaigns and creating awareness wherever possible. Fathima says the space is open and there is not much competition currently because they look to work with “parents in an organized and focused manner.” However, she understands the need to improvise to stay on top of the market, and often turns to theatre for inspiration.