Kamal joined the Partikshitlal Ashram Shala mid academic year in 2011. He quickly became best-friend with another studentYash, who together were very mischievous in the class and in thehostel. Both boys had short attention spans, did not listen to teachers and would always cause trouble. Instead they would both resort to playing and doing alternative activities which they found fun. As a consequence of this, both boys would lose their personal belonging and did not progress academically in school.

To help these children, NeelamThakkar a teacher at the Ashram Shala took them aside and explained to Kamal and Yash the importance of studying and good behaviour. She emphasised that if they did not learn and push themselves academically, they would have a difficult future when they grew up. She also explained to both boys the reason for their personal belongs getting misplaced, was due to their erratic and disorganised behaviour. If they took the time to organise themselves and behaved well, fewer things would go missing. 

One month later after the boys realised that not only their possessions were missing but others too, Yash and Kamal took the initiative and made a lost property box called the ‘KhoyaPaya box’. The two boys along with their friend Mitesh, made the box out of cardboard and together with their teachers support, explained to peers in their class and hostel the purpose and how the box can be used.  They emphasised that if in the future anyone’s items or artefacts are found and not sure who they belong too, they should place them straight inside the ‘KhoyaPaya box’. In this way, all the lost or missing items would be located in one place and people would be able to retrieve them easily. To this date, the box has been used on numerous occasions by all the children. The teachers were very impressed with Yash and Kamal’s simple but effective invention, that both boys received recognition and were awarded a prize.