By Educate Girls | Team
A big thank you to all donors who generously supported our BackToSchool microproject!
The funds gathered on Global Giving, coupled with other sources of income (institutional grants, corporate funding, etc.) have enabled Educate Girls to conduct the 2015 enrollment drive successfully across thousands of villages in Rajasthan, India.
So far in the academic year 2015-16, Educate Girls has already enrolled over 70,000 primary-school aged girls. Out of these, 27,000 girls have begun or resumed school in Class 2-8 and some 43,000 have been enrolled in Class 1. More enrollments will be completed until the end of the academic year, but it can already be said that the number of out-of-school girls enrolled over the past months is a great achievement, as it exceeds last year’s overall enrollment – 55,500 girls!
What comes next on the ground, for the now enrolled girls? While, during the first months of the academic year, we focus primarily on enrolling the maximum number of out-of-school girls, our main activities post the enrollment drive will aim at boosting students’ learning outcomes and life-skills as well as improving school infrastructure and governance.
Educate Girls works in educationally backward districts that are carefully selected to ensure operations are rolled out where the needs are the greatest. All rural villages of these districts are covered by Educate Girls’ intervention. At present, Educate Girls is operating in 7 districts and about 7,700 schools in Rajasthan, India. In each village, local champions for girls’ education, called Team Balika, are trained and empowered to plant the seed of change at the community level. Together with the field staff, the Team Balika visit families in the community. Aided by existing government data (Child Tracking Survey), they thoroughly draw a list of all out-of-school girls so that no single girl is missed out. Educate Girls talks then to parents and community leaders during home visits and village meets to sensitize them to the importance and benefits of girls’ education and to create awareness about India’s RTE Act, 2009, which makes primary education free of charge and compulsory for every child in India. Through use of diplomacy and unremitting efforts in advocating the girl child’s cause, Educate Girls stands up against the traditional mindset and convinces parents to send their daughters to school.
This is how Seema, who, at the age of 8, used to spend her days grazing the cattle and doing household chores, finally got enrolled in school. Tens of thousands of other girls have found that luck when their path crossed with Educate Girls. We whole-heartedly thank you for helping us make quality education accessible to India’s most marginalized girls!
To know more about Educate Girls, you can check out our Website or YouTube Channel and keep yourself posted about our progress by following us on Facebook, Twitter or Blog.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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