Living Equality Foundation Provide opportunity to girls aged 6-14 years, from socially and economically disadvantaged communities of India, who, traditionally have no access to schooling. Our aim is to break the cycle of illiteracy that girls from such communities are mired in. This is done through local community-based Learning Centers, where they get meaningful and stimulating education and are guided to their entry into formal schooling
OVERALL PROGRAMME OBJECTIVE The Goal of the project is to involve 150 out-of-school girls identified in the selected 5 villages to provide quality primary education from class I to class V through Learning Centers established in each of the village, using most effective curriculum and pedagogy that will ensure their fast paced progress and completion of class V in the shortest time possible.
INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT
Girls Education Project was started by Living Equality Foundation. (Manju Bansal ) Under this project, Living Equality Foundation has identified rural out-of-school girls in 20 different regions 3 States with low female participation in education. There ’s single minded focus is on providing quality primary education to rural out-of-school girls. LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION has identified problems plaguing girls’ primary education in India and has developed a model that overcomes these problems viz. the LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION Learning Centre model. Under this model, LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION establishes single-teacher primary Learning Centers in the villages with high concentration of out-of-school girls in the 6-14 year age group. These girls benefit from the learning center approach as they are near to their homes. Thus, LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION takes the school to their door steps. The Learning Centers employ female teachers sourced from the local area who provide very high quality education through play-way methods. The Learning Centers are also a converging point for the local village community as they learn about the importance of education for girls and break age-old shackles in girls’ education.
LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION is planning to running this project in over 20 Cities of India, and has covered over 60000 out-of-school girls in the primary education programme. LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION will runs this project for about 5 - 6 years in one locality, upto the time that each girl enrolled in the Learning Centre has received a firm grounding in primary education.. We have observed in sample surveys that the girls who have completed their primary education from learning centers have very high levels of skills and competence. They have demonstrated same competence at higher levels also. Many of the girls have now joined higher secondary and college level education and have demonstrated equal competencies there also. Even when most of the girls completing their education from schools are first generation learners from their families, these are the very girls who are bringing a big change in their communities. By getting good education and by continuing in higher education, they will be the agents of development and leaders of their communities tomorrow.
ABOUT THE PROPOSAL
The proposal seeks grant for implementation of girl child education project through establishment of 5 community based learning centers in 20 cities. The suggested places where there is urgent need to start learning centers is South 24 Parganas District in West Bengal, Shahjahanpur District in Uttar Pradesh, Raigarh District in Chhattisgarh, Siramaur District in Himachal Pradesh, Mewat district in Haryana. These states have extremely low female literacy levels. The proposal will be implemented by LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION through an NGO partner/ partners. These 5 district with 25 Learning centers will impart primary education to about 600 previously out-of-school girls. The aim of the project is to provide high quality primary education to these girls and then mainstream them firmly in upper primary education. All this will be done through active participation of the parents and community members. A large number of girls, especially from SC, ST and other backward communities who are not getting their rightful place in primary education, will be benefited.
INTRODUCTION
South 24 Parganas district is an important district of West Bengal State with its district headquarters in Alipore. It is the largest district of West Bengal State by area and second largest by population. On one side it has the urban fringe of Kolkata and on the other, the remote riverine villages in the Sundarbans. It is the sixth most populous district in India.
LITERACY Average literacy rate of South 24 Parganas according to the census of 2011 were 78.57 compared to 69.45 of 2001. Gender wise, male and female literacy were 84.72% and 72.09% respectively. For 2001 census, same figures stood at 79.19% and 59.01%. Total number of literates in South 24 Parganas District is 5,639,112 of which male and female were 3,120,200 and 2,518,912 respectively. From the census figures itself we can see a huge gap between male and female literacy rates. The ground reality is even worse. The village level surveys have shown female literacy as low as 15% in some blocks of the district.
The objectives of the LIVING EQUALITY FOUNDATION- Girls Education Programme are as follows:
◼ Outreach: Through door-to-door survey identify and enlist all out-of-school girls in selected 5 district;
◼ Infrastructure: To Establish learning centers, one in each village and each center covering 60 girls;
◼ Academic progress: To provide quality primary education to 150 presently out-of- school girls through these 5 learning centers, using most innovative and attractive educational materials and methods;
◼ Parent awareness and sensitization: To enlist support and motivation of the parents so that no out of school girl is left behind;
◼ Pedagogical intervention: To enhance the curriculum and develop more meaningful Teaching-Learning Materials;
◼ Resource development: To develop capacity of the teachers and cultivate new teachers through especially designed training workshops;
◼ Community empowerment: To empower the village community members and establish community infrastructure that will play an important role in village education and development;