Vaster, not Smaller

“We need a society that celebrates human creativity, sees individual souls as our greatest resource, and is imaginative enough to know how to make each life feel vaster, not smaller.” ~Joseph Fasano

Educators the world over are facing questions about how AI fits in. Considering our program is a digital literacy program, we at Basis have been thinking long and hard about this too, and we've arrived at our answer, after much thought and reflection. Most of our learners are young women. When they step foot into one of our Bloom Centres in Bangalore, they are putting their fingers to keyboards for the first time in their lives. They are sitting at a professional workstation for the first time in their lives. They are not only accessing a new skills development opportunity through our program, they are accessing their own voices - in a culture where women’s voices can be made to feel very small. Not only small, but not needed.

How their confidence increases through the duration of our program! Through the support of our trainers and peers, they suddenly have a new sense of possibilities. A new sense of what they might bring to the table of their own lives.

While we do suggest that they use an AI chat bot to help them with their grammar and punctuation in our Spoken English lessons, we want their writing to be their own - from start to finish. How hopeless it might feel to them, when AI cannot only spell perfectly, and present an idea with perfect grammar, AI can also SAY it better. If this is so, why should they bother to write at all? Our learners - whose voices are downplayed in society already - don’t need to have a thought anymore. Or if they do, they don’t need to work out how to express it. Their ability to avail themselves of AI agents will be there - is there already, we know - but in our program we encourage our learners to be critical thinkers, to express their own thoughts in their own words, and to develop their own ideas. 

We want their lives to not only feel vaster, we want them to BE vaster, not smaller. This sense of vastness is felt almost purely in one’s heart, in one’s mind. Yes, circumstances are there, always, but they are there to be overcome. Over 60% of our graduates have found jobs, and at least 30% are continuing their education!

In March Priya Meiselbach, a Bangalorean, volunteered to do an art therapy session with our new learners at Freesia Bloom.

Jenifer George, 28, shared the story behind her painting. When she was working as a teacher she was nearly killed in a car accident in 2025. For a long time after she did not leave her home. Until she heard about Bloom. Her participation in our program is her first step to connecting to her own future again. In her own words, “Every day is a new beginning, so don’t miss it.”

Our vision for each and every learner is that they will each have a chance, every day, to discover their own unique and original voice, and that they will each feel valued, needed, and free to pursue the future that they dream of in a life that feels vaster, not smaller.

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In February we celebrated the graduation of 47 learners from Bloom, bringing our total number of Bloom graduates to 326!

Tovika Sema, proprietor of Vida Brazilian Cafe in Bangalore, inspired our graduates with her keynote address. Click the image below to view an excerpt on our Instagram account!

We have entered the fifth year of our beautiful partnership with Family Development Services in Bangalore. Currently 89 learners are enrolled in our program across three Bloom Digital Skills for Life Centres.