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Project FUEL

Designing a unique and participative repository of human wisdom, of people from the common walks of life, with a heuristic approach.

Project FUEL documents, designs and passes on human wisdom from all ages and backgrounds across the world; using the tools of education, art, media and events. FUEL stands for Forward the Understanding of Every Life Lesson. We aim to document the understanding of life through people’s life lessons and pass them on as innovative, creative & effective solutions for everyone to live their best life.

HundrED 2022
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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2022

HundrED 2021

HundrED 2020

Web presence

2009

Established

550K

Children

13

Countries
Updated
April 2019
When you learn you become a star, but when you teach you become a constellation

About the innovation

About Project FUEL

Project FUEL documents, designs and passes on human wisdom through educational modules, art, digital media, events and publications. The organization seeks to build a community of young adults who live, learn and share in order to make meaningful psycho-social and emotional contribution to themselves and the society in large. The vision is to fill the need gap of advices and solutions using the human experience and by making each life count. To facilitate this, we design full-length workshops, art-based projects, digital content, and events to help internalize them. We use social media platforms, documentary films and regularly updated Hindi and English blogs as mediums other than the workshops to facilitate the reach of human learnings to a wide range of audience.

The innovation in Project FUEL rests upon the methodology of life lessons itself. We document, design and pass on human wisdom through performance and interactive workshops, art-based community initiatives and digital content. From working towards the integration of Syrian refugees in Europe to painting world’s first village of life lessons, our projects encourage creative solutions and tools for students to learn through an immersive engagement. Understanding wisdom through the lens of life lessons is significant because it eliminates the creation of stereotypes and transcends cultural context.

Each of our projects aim at shaping belief systems, breaking stereotypes and harnessing the collective power of people in different communities. In our first Masterpiece tour, we taught nearly 3500 students in seven schools across six cities and focused on building life skills such as effective communication, critical thinking, creative thinking, self-awareness and self-esteem. Through the project called ‘Out of Syllabus’, young students at schools are being encouraged to acknowledge the learnings of their teachers and ask about their life lessons. By collecting the life lessons of the teachers, we create a unique database of learnings that can act as a repository on human-interest stories and an advice bank for budding change-makers. These stories increase relatability to problems and motivate students to empathize, promoting a culture of peace and non-violence. We also collaborated with the City Education Board of Antwerp, Belgium to harness the potential of human wisdom in making public school more democratic and inclusive. Using FUEL Methodology, members of the school will engage in a creative process aimed at making the life lessons of the learners as visible and tangible as possible.

Project FUEL was founded in 2009 by Deepak Ramola, and incorporated in 2014 following Deepak’s extensive work of teaching and conducting workshops. He has been teaching age groups 4-96 for past 10 years. From victims of human trafficking in Nepal to middle school children in Afghanistan to refugees in Europe. Through the course of his work, he devised, tested and polished the approach of using life lessons as a unique methodology to teach life skills. Deepak, is a featured United Nations speaker, a Merit 360 Action Plan Executor, a TED speaker, an educator, a writer, actor, lyricist and a gold medalist in Mass Media studies from the University of Mumbai. He uses tools of theatre, spoken word poetry, storytelling, communicative expression and creative writing to design full-length activities, exercises and games which are a part of his life skills workshops. Deepak uses his multi-faceted experiences and multidimensional talents towards channeling everyday wisdom and experiences into easy to imbibe and apply, life lessons.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Project FUEL is transforming education by way of storytelling. The documented life stories are made into lessons helping students develop a wide range of skills, drawing meaning from real life experiences of people from various backgrounds and age. Deepak Ramola has just launched a book with plans to increase his global reach.

HundrED Academy Reviews
This is a model of what education can look like. They focus on holistic education and life skills using different medium including storytelling , spoken word, and creative writing. This model could inspire other educators to see what is possible in another model of education.
Project FUEL is a great education initiative!!! Chapeau!!! This is the kind of inspirations we need all to have... Deepak Ramola is a leader in motion, somebody that is going to provide good news for humanity!! He must continue his project to gain global scale...He will make it, for sure 100%.
- Academy member
Academy review results
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Low Scalability
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Media

Stedelijk Onderwijs x Project FUEL: The Power of Democratic Learning
In 2019, the Municipal Education Board of Antwerp adopted the FUEL methodology to make their schools more democratic and to help them adopt a life-long perspective to learning through human encounters. The project was focused on democratic knowledge and values, the capacity to collaborate and participate, and the feeling of human connection at school and learning from each other. The project in a glimpse: https://youtu.be/VBKPre8ta_E
The Out of Syllabus Project
The Out of Syllabus Project aims to document, design and celebrate the wisdom of our teachers, through their stories and life lessons, to build a meaningful connection, personal learning and to enhance immersive conversations with their students. By collecting the life lessons of the teachers we create a unique database of learnings that can act as a repository on human-interest stories and an advice bank for budding change-makers.The stories are documented through personal interviews by a curated set of students (called the ‘Wisdom Club’) on both paper and film with a larger goal of benefiting the school. Post the collection of data, the stories along with the photo of the teacher are exhibited in the school space as a wisdom gallery exhibit. Thus, making the stories available to all the students. The ‘Wisdom Club’ members then take charge to continue the project in their school using their own creative ideas and learnings.Through the Out of Syllabus Project, our focus is to work towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education). Teaching students at a young age to learn from the stories of others helps them acknowledge that everyone person in the world brings a certain amount of unique experience and value with themselves. These stories increase relatability to problems and motivate students to empathize, promoting a culture of peace and non-violence.See the project in action: https://youtu.be/O-Sv_YUuIss
Resolve All Conflicts | Twice as Wise | Season 01 Episode 02
Through 'Twice as Wise' we share some of the most heartwarming, soul-stirring and easy to imbibe life lessons we have documented. Each episode is centered around a unique life lesson that has created an immense impact in the lives of others. The episode which is 5-6 minutes in duration has the story behind the life lesson, how we designed and passed it on and finally how the person watching the video can interpret and internalise it. The most beautiful part about this series is the authentic human wisdom that comes not from masters and mentors but has been collected from common people from all around the world.Watch the series here: https://youtu.be/7_rg0bRA2OI
The Wise Wall Project
The Wise Wall Project is an initiative of Project FUEL and FUEL Foundation to document the rural wisdom of our villages and celebrate it through art murals.The Wise Wall Project transforms villages into living classrooms, turning the walls of the same onto blackboards and canvases that uncover striking yet simple life learnings. These lessons are further designed and presented to the world through various mediums on our platform. The project aims to ignite a movement of transforming the long forgotten villages into open-air galleries, exhibiting human wisdom for anyone and everyone in the world to see and benefit from. We believe that knowledge is the most valuable currency there is, of stories-waiting to be told and waiting to unfold!From tapping into the practical learning of the villagers laced with age-old philosophies, to developing empathy that encourages us to adapt the right attitude and take corrective actions to support our ancestral villages.To know more, click here: https://wisewallproject.com/
The Masterpiece Tour
The Masterpiece Tour is our flagship program under which we travel between 6 days to 3 months to a different community/country to conduct back-to-back workshops with different institutions, and create a pool of extraordinary life lessons. Learnings from day 1 spill over to day 2 spill over to day 3 and so on, eventually creating a unique masterpiece.Till now, we have completed four tours with different communities-1. In 2014, we travelled to Punjab, India where we taught nearly 3500 students in seven schools across six cities and focused on building life skills such as effective communication, critical thinking, creative thinking, self-awareness and self-esteem.2. For our second tour, we travelled to Nepal, post the devastating earthquake in 2015, to pass on the methodology of life lessons to the people of capital city of Kathmandu. During our 10-day stay in the country, we taught and worked with over 800 people. From survivors of human trafficking at Maiti to Nepal's top young leaders and government school students. The workshops were centered around the themes of inclusion and overcoming loss.3. In the third edition, we traveled to Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, France and Hungary to collect life lessons of people affected by recent migrant crisis - both refugees, and citizens of the countries that have provided asylum to them. We studied integration to create enabling communities. Through a daily social media reach and on-ground activities, we humanized refugee stories through their life lessons.4. In 2018, we extended our  program to Tanzania, Africa in the month of September. Focusing on the theme of Gender Mainstreaming, we documented stories and wisdom of young girls and women in the region. Then, using our methodology of human wisdom, we took these life lessons to academic and non-academic institutions and organizations in Tanzania.To know more, click here: https://projectfuel.in/themasterpiecetour/1.html

Implementation steps

Start where you are!

1. Document the life lessons, the story behind the lessons, along with their name and age.

2. Submit them on our website- www.projectfuel.in
Introduce the Out of Syllabus project in your school

To know more about the project and how you can introduce it in your school, visit www.outofsyllabusproject.com

Reach out for collborations
Write to us at contact@projectfuel.in

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