Aimed at making education fun and more effective, Efundu offers what is possibly India’s first syllabus-based cartoon textbooks for school students.

You might also like: She Grew up in Mumbai's Slums. Today, Aarti Has Educated & Empowered Hundreds of Girls Like Her
A meeting with Jyothi Thyagarajan, founder of Meghshala Foundation (Efundu’s content partners), enabled him to zero-in on NCERT textbooks for the pilot launch of a series of books that taught lessons through cartoons. Efundu formally launched in January 2015 with its first set of cartoon-based lessons in English.
“We started with the NCERT environmental science (EVS) book of Class 5, and turned it into a 16-page book with six lessons,” says Vjay. “We made sure that the information we gave was relevant—for instance, we added information on dry waste-wet waste segregation which was not available in the books. We approached Akshaya Patra Foundation to help us test the content—they were surprised but eager to help, and they distributed the books to 1100 schools in a month. That’s when the real work began."Using the feedback received from the schools, particularly the teachers, the team improved the content to make it more accessible for students as well as teachers. However, one thing was certain—the comic book and storytelling approach to studies certainly made students reach for their books. A year after the pilot project, the team launched their first book comprising 11 chapters of the same EVS book.
The first Efundu books were entirely in English. Realising that it limited the impact, Vijay and his team diversified into regional languages starting with Kannada and Hindi.

You might also like: This Educational Startup Aims to Bring Cutting-Edge 3D Printing to Every School in India
The team works with experienced illustrators to fine-tune the visuals. All the books are offered to students only after they have been vetted by a panel of teachers before they make their way to schools and classrooms. “There are a lot of enterprises that have digitised education and also use graphics, but no one we know of has taken the approach of cartoon-based learning,” says Vijay, explaining that depending entirely on the comic book format sets them apart from conventional illustrated school textbooks. Having engaged with children primarily through NGOs and foundations so far, the team is now making the books available through retail bookstores as well as on online platforms. They are also gearing up to release their next book, encompassing the remains chapters of the NCERT books.
Once the first leg of publishing the books is completed, the Efundu team aims to create educational films and interactive games in the future.

“Working with foundations and NGOs has helped us expand our scope and reach many schools,” Vijay says. “But governments also have to support such initiatives—we want every student to have these books, not just the school and classroom libraries—and having CSR and government support can help subsidise the prices (or make them free of cost) for government schools, and also scale up our operations.”Having reached over 50,000 children so far, he suggests that his approach aims to enable children to develop analytical skills and use the lessons to interact with peers and teach, and further their education. “Each box of the comics is a conversation starter,” he says. “You can’t tell children everything. Rather, the lessons encourage them to discuss the subjects with teachers and learn more.” The journey has been both rewarding and challenging for Vijay and his team, but he is not deterred. “It is one of our life goals,” he says, and Team Efundu is only getting started. Take a look at the Efundu book online. To contact Vijay, click here.