CanvasCode

Every child is a canvas.

CanvasCode is a nonprofit helping children in need build lives — and livelihoods — of their own. Not aid for a day. Skills for life.

The problem

The cliff at eighteen

Roughly 50,000 young people age out of India’s child care institutions every year at eighteen — most without employment readiness or independent-living skills. Government aftercare is a stipend. A stipend is a fish. Nobody is systematically building the earner before the cliff arrives.

  1. Beyond 18: Leaving Child Care Institutions — Udayan Care, with UNICEF India and Tata Trusts (2019)
  2. How India’s aftercare programme can benefit care leavers — India Development Review
≈50,000
young people age out every year
from India’s child care institutions
18
the age the cliff arrives
institutional support largely ends at adulthood
67%
of care leavers don’t know aftercare exists
Beyond 18 study, five states, 2019
What we do

The Journey

Four stages, one path — from first exposure to a business of their own. Graduates loop back as mentors for the children behind them.

  1. 1 (completed)
    Discover
    First exposure to real skills
  2. 2 (completed)
    Learn
    Structured skill-building
  3. 3
    Earn
    First income of their own
  4. 4
    Build
    A business of their own
How we work

A bridge, not a program

We work through the organizations that already house and care for these children — pulling global resources and expertise down to the ground.

Global partners

Expertise flows in

Companies, foundations, and professionals contribute skills, tools, and opportunity.

We carry it across

Curriculum, mentors, and real work, delivered through the people children already trust.

On-ground partners

Children build

Young people in partner homes and schools learn, earn, and start businesses of their own.

The promise

We don't give a child a fish. We teach them to fish — so they eat every day, on their own terms, for the rest of their lives.

CanvasCode’s registrations as a nonprofit are in progress in India and the United States. We’re building in the open — read how we work.