Tiljala SHED: learning centres for the children of Kolkata’s rag pickers

Tiljala SHED began in 1987, started by a handful of young people from Tiljala, a neighbourhood of Kolkata. The name is short for the Tiljala Society for Human and Educational Development. Its website describes it as grassroots, non-religious and not aligned with any political party.

It works with families in Tiljala and Topsia who make their living collecting and sorting the city’s waste, and with families in squatter settlements. The organization calls them rag picker and squatter communities, and the children in its programs come from both.

After school, not instead of it

Education is the largest of its three programs. Children come to its learning centres outside school hours for coaching classes, and for sport, art and digital sessions. The extra lessons it lists include guitar, martial arts and dance.

In mid-September 2026 it reported six learning centres and program spaces in operation across Kolkata. At two of them, children get milk and seasonal fruit three times a week.

What it reports

Tiljala SHED reports these figures through Nexus Impacts, and 4Planet shows them with that source attached:

• 700 children enrolled in at least one part of its child development program

• 6 learning centres and program spaces

• an average attendance rate of 70 percent across coaching, sport, arts and digital sessions

• 300 meals of milk and fruit