Hi, I'm Shemeer, and I work at aikyam space.
About a year ago, I met Aparna through Anjali from Thudippu Dance Foundation. Aparna is one of the most most dedicated and selfless dance teacher with a deep love for dance. She aspires to make dance accessible to everyone — especially children from lower-income families who have historically been excluded from learning certain dance forms. But Aparna faced a big hurdle. Renting a space was far too expensive, and her own home just was not big enough to host classes.
At the time, our team was running an office nearby. Looking around, we realized we were just a small group of people working in a place that sat mostly empty, especially on weekends. We thought, why can't we just make our office space accessible to Aparna? So we did. Aparna started holding her dance classes at our office. Soon, kids from all over the neighbourhood were coming to learn, practise, and put on performances that brought so much joy to the whole community. And to us.
A few weeks on, we met Mary, who is incredible at stitching and wanted to share that joy with others. Then we met people who loved cooking and needed a place to share their recipes. As the community grew, our team started moving into smaller and smaller rooms in our own office to make space for everyone — and we couldn't be happier about it.
Navigating through this made me realise how important it is for us to move from being independent to building interdependent communities. It is so easy to do. All we have to do is open up our spaces, look around us, and see who needs access. I am sure that if you look around your neighbourhood or workplace, you will find an Aparna or a Mary whom you can host.
If you are inspired by what Aparna, Mary and others like them are doing and want to open a space in your neighbourhood, office, school, or college, we would love to connect with you through our Open Spaces for Good program. We will not be able to give you a playbook, steps — every community is different, so there is no universal playbook. But we have made a lot of mistakes along the way, so we can definitely tell you what not to do! We can share our infrastructure like website, attendance, event managements, practical workflow guidelines, and be a friendly shoulder to lean on while you adapt things to your own needs.
Your journey starts by getting in touch to tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to start a space. As soon as you are ready, our team and partners will reach out to listen, chat, and help you think it through.