A bright and pleasant Thursday morning in the month of July 2006 with soothing sunshine & cheery birds in the park changed the outlook for a few morning walkers after having witnessed weekly unpleasant scenes at a Dargah in the Main Park, Opposite Sector 15A, Noida. Promising young and innocent children deprived of basic socio-economic needs, were begging for alms. Efforts were made over time to politely discourage the almsgivers as it would only make the poverty-stricken children weaker to face and tackle the ills of their plight, but it was hardly heard by any.

It is then that Late Rear Admiral (Retd.) H.C. Malhotra, resident of Sector-15A, Noida interacted with Mr Sunil Razdan, one of the alms-givers, a middle aged and youthful Morning Walker. They both shared similar views and together firmed up on the view that there were deep rooted social ill effects, if begging of any kind was encouraged. Two strangers with similar views decided to take action against this appalling condition by combining the experience and guidance of the older with the energy of the younger and founded ‘Gyan Shakti Vidyalaya’ to help these children into the mainstream by primarily supporting their educational needs along with social, health and hygiene care. This brought a ray of hope in over a hundred of lesser privileged children’s life in the slum dwellings of Yamuna Khader Pushta, off Delhi-Noida Flyway. The two torch bearers of the school facilitated admission of the students into the Government school.

The next step was to actually teach the children in the evenings. Late Mr Kharu, a retired Govt headmaster from Kashmir, who had an experience of over 40 years in teaching in different schools there and had moved to NOIDA following retirement, volunteered his time to teach the children for a year. He would reach the park where our school started every morning and teach 11 children, from the nearby Jhuggis. He was our foundation teacher who hanged the first black board to get the project going. In the first year the number of students increased to 56, with him exclusively teaching them.

GSV provided after school support to the children who were typically those who could not turn to their families for any basic academic assistance. GSV rolled out its classes in the open park equipped with durries and whiteboards. The gradual inclusion of volunteers who formed a core team and teachers the project began to take shape attracting the attention of more and more morning walkers and through them corporates like Sopra Steria who stood strong through the formation of the organisation, granting it sustainability.

Over the years, the evolution of the school has embraced diversity and new dimensions which have been instrumental in shifting its execution from a park to a school building called ‘ Miniland Public School’ in Sector 14 NOIDA.

At its inception the school functioned from a Park and at the Basti located at Chilla Khadar Mayur Vihar Ph-1, East Delhi-91, to which the students belong. Currently, GSV supports children going to the Govt. (Co.ed) Sr. Sec. School Chilla Gaon Mayur Vihar Ph-1 Ext. Delhi-91 (Classes 6-12) and to the MCD PS Chilla Saroda-2nd Chilla Village Mayur Vihar Ph-1 Delhi-91 (Classes 1-5). GSV functions for the students of Classes 6-12 from the Miniland Public School, Sector 14, NOIDA, in the evenings, and from the Basti for the MCD school students in the morning. The school shifted from the Park to the Miniland Public School from1 April 2023 onwards, maintaining an overall strength of approx. 430. The challenges that the school faced have been plenty including frequent basti demolitions, lack of a durable infrastructure, financial priorities of the beneficiary population etc contributing to a high attrition rate.