A simple idea has guided my journey at Maya and Mosha – “There are two gifts we should give our children, one is roots and the other is wings”

I spoke to Prachi Shukla Dixit, who runs a global educational company that teaches and engages kids and students to learn Indian languages and cultural in a interactive fun way.

Please share your background and your idea/personal story behind this company?

My background is in marketing and consumer insights and I am currently based in Dubai, UAE. My journey as an entrepreneur started when I became a mom. My kids were studying in an International curriculum in Dubai and it used to tug at my heart when I used to see them finding wings to fly but losing connect with their own cultural identity, mother tongue and roots. I decided to do something about it. I started teaching a few children in my community (pro bono) about Indian languages, history, culture. I received an overwhelmingly warm response. I soon realized I wasn’t alone living with the need to keep a part of our roots alive in our kids. It was then that I decided to take my initiative global, and I started online mother tongue classes for kids all over the world. That is how this journey began.

We started with just 4 kids and 1 language a year ago. Today we are 60 kids across six cities in the world and teach 4 languages – Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi.

We also have an app that is live on Play Store and App Store. (Can be downloaded here https://click.mayaandmosha.com/gUBU/7d320c84)

 You started with the app but moved onto online classes. What is your goal in this effort? 

That’s correct. When we launched our app we realized that kids would log onto the app and then after a few weeks of engagement, they would move on. When we spoke to the parents and kids, they showed us the way. Taking their feedback onboard – we HUMANIZED the learning – the critical element they felt was missing.  Our classes helped ensure the kids are hand held through this journey. These live classes are fun, engaging and make Mother Tongue learning cool and interactive for kids. Around the same time we were selected for incubation at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore. The mentors there also guided our start-up and encouraged us to follow this path. That’s how this shift happened. And we are so glad we did. Today we have touched the lives of so many kids and families. As they say – the real strength of a tree lies in the roots not it’s branches.

Could you expand on some of the language and cultural lessons that you offer

We offer 4 languages – Hindi, Telugu, Marathi and Gujarati.

We have developed our own curriculum keeping the NRI child at the heart of it. It’s story based, activity centered with a focus on spoken language.

We have a learning path that spans 2 yrs – starting from Initiation (the very basic level focussed on spoken language only) , followed by Beginner, Intermediate and then Advance – where they also learning reading and writing. These sessions are fun, gamified, interactive and once a week. We start at the age of 6yrs and there is no upper limit.

The level at which a child starts is decided by 2 factors:

1)    Current level of comfort/understanding of the language (e.g can understand a few words but can’t speak, doesn’t understand or speak at all)

2)    How much opportunity they have at home to speak the language – e.g. we have kids who come from multi cultural families and may not have anyone at home to speak the language with.

Based on the above they start at different levels.

In fact we have seen many University students also reach out to us and join our sessions. We have seen a pattern where kids who lose out learning their mother tongue in their early years feel the instinctive urge to reconnect and learn it when they get to college. We have recently started Spoken Language classes for teenagers and adults as well.

Who have you collaborated with in terms of curriculum and the partners?

Our curriculum has been especially created for Maya and Mosha by highly experienced and qualified teachers from international schools here in Dubai. Over and above language in every class we teach kids about our festivals, key rituals, important milestones of our country. The idea is to empower them with knowledge.  With  knowledge, pride in their roots is a natural outcome.

Our curriculum has been mapped to CBSE text books and has been specially curated for the NRI child. Story based, lots of activities, role plays, games and interactive discussions are the key highlights of our sessions. That is the key value we add. We make learning COOL and FUN. We understand the context of our kids and make the content relevant and contextualized.

Finally share a couple of success stories of kids/parents who have loved this program

By God’s grace and the hard work of our teachers there are so many. And frankly this impact we create keeps us going. We have 85% enrollments via referrals and have a 95% retention rate. We have journeys of kids who joined us when they couldn’t speak a word and now are reading and writing full sentences in their mother tongue. I’d love to share some of the feedbak below we have received from parents.

Finally, how can interested parents reach out to you and enroll in these lessons?

Parents are welcome to book the FREE Trial session for their kids via the link below:
https://www.mayaandmosha.com/playdate/

OR 

What’s app us on: +971 58 597 7021

Local residents Divya and Naren Chandra of Acton, MA enrolled their son Parth in the program and this is what they say.

We were worried when our son, Parth, who spoke Hindi fluently as a toddler, stopped doing so after starting elementary school here in the U.S.  He followed the conversations in Hindi but mostly chose to respond in English.   As parents, we were very keen that Parth speaks at least one of his Mother tongues and learns about his Indian heritage - so when we heard about the Maya and Mosha online classes, we promptly signed up. And what an amazing decision that was! Parth enjoys the class (playdate) so much- they sing songs, solve puzzles, and play games (somewhat competitively), and has learned to speak, read, and even write Hindi! For the past year, our Sunday mornings have been bright and warm as we see the dedication and patience with which the teachers Ms. Sawhney and Ms. Dixit teach the class.  Parth’s recent trip to Delhi and Bangalore was engaging and fun as he was able to relate to India’s beauty even more!

Thank you, Team Maya and Mosha!

To know more....

www.mayaandmosha.com

https://www.instagram.com/mayaandmosha

https://www.facebook.com/mayaandmosha

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