The Credo of Ruchika Social Service Organisation is "If a child cannot come to school, the school must go to the child". With the implementation of Right to Education Act, Ruchika aims to support enrolment and retention of 3,000 underprivileged slum children in Government schools through its 150 remedial education centres. Ruchika needs support to continue 75 remedial centres in Bhubaneswar, in order to prevent these children from being out of school again.
The slums of Bhubaneswar, Odisha, are a breeding ground for poverty, exploitation, negligence, destitution and disease. There is a high school dropout by grade 8 due to poor access to education, resulting in these children being employed in the labour sector at a young age. Seeking to supplement family income, children work in different and distant locations and are often victim of substance abuse as well. Keeping them in government school is a challenge as the teacher: student ratio is high.
Ruchika expects universal enrollment of slum children in schools and their retention. Over last 7 years Ruchika has been imparting remedial education to maintain academic proficiency of the children at par with their counterpart together by engaging in community mobilization, child and parental counselling, school teacher sensitization. The average marks of the enrolled students have gone up from 24% in a subject to 70%.
This program is part of Ruchika's integrated model for providing education and skill for a child in order to improve his/her standard of living. The academic results of enrolled children have motivated parents in enrolling children in school. Ruchika also runs skill development program for those completing their education, with 90% chances of placement. In three years, Ruchika aims to make this program self sustainable by empowering community to run and manage the centres with minimal support
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
