Educate Girls

Educate Girls
Founded 2007
Founder Safeena Husain
Type Community Service
Focus Girl Education
Location
Area served
Rajasthan, India
Method Partnership with Government Schools in Gender-Gap Districts
Key people
 Safeena Husain
Volunteers
over 4000
Slogan "Bridging the Gender Gap One Girl at a Time"
Website http://www.educategirls.in/

Educate Girls is a non-profit organization in India that aims to tackle issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system.[1] Founded in 2007, the non-governmental organization has its management and outreach office in Mumbai and operations in the Pali, Sirohi, Ajmer, Bundi, and Rajsamand districts of Rajasthan. Since 2007, Educate Girls has worked with over 7,000 government schools, where the introduction of creative learning and teaching techniques is claimed to have increased learning outcomes by 35-60 per cent.[2] Since 2007, the organization has reached over 1,000,000 total beneficiaries, and enrolled close to 80,000 out-of-school girls in school [3] Educate Girls was founded by Safeena Husain.

Executive summary

Educate Girls involves and empowers various stakeholders to create a system that promotes and supports girls’ education.

Educate Girls creates community ownership to help communities to prioritize girls' education. The model includes the following elements:[4]

Team Balika

Team Balika[5] consists of over 4500 community volunteers who work as champions for girls’ education and catalysts for school reform. Team Balika members work in the schools as well as village communities spreading awareness on girl child education. They boost enrollment, retention and learning outcomes for all girls. Team Balika is trained in community mobilization & outreach, CLT techniques, leadership, and motivation. They are often between the ages of 16-25 and are among the most educated members of their communities.

Community - Based Enrollment Plans

After identifying out-of-school girls in the area, village meetings are organized to prepare community based enrollment plans. Responsibility is distributed between the village leaders, elders, school administrations, Team Balika (Community Volunteers) and Educate Girls' staff to bring the girls back to school.

School Management Committees

At village meetings, a 12-15 member council is elected to for a School Management Committee (SMC). This consists of parents, teachers and village leaders and is responsible for school governance and administrations. Educate Girls trains the SMC and provides them with the support to prepare and execute School Improvement Plans (SIPs) and conduct school assessments

Creative Learning and Teaching Techniques & Classroom Support

Educate Girls trains one teacher per school in Creative Learning & Teaching (CLT) techniques. Test are conducted before and after training to assess learning levels. Classroom hand-holding support is provided by Educate Girls staff and trained Team Balika. As a result of Educate Girls CLT interventions, students saw a 15-35% improvement in Hindi, 9-29% in English, and 11-29% in Math.[6]

Creation of Girl Leaders

Educate Girls facilitates the election of Bal Sabhas (Girls' Councils) in every upper primary school. This 13-member council gives girls a leadership position within the school and training in life skills to boost communication, leadership and problem solving skills.

History

A committed local team of Educate Girls conducted the initial test project in 50 schools of Pali and Jalore districts in Rajasthan. This 50-school project was launched under the umbrella of the Rajasthan Education Initiative (REI).[7] [8]

After successful completion of the test phase, the organization was independently registered in 2007 and won government approval to start a pilot project in 500 schools in 2008, working with 70,000 children in the Bali, Sumerpur and Rani blocks of Pali district with the cooperation and support of extended by partners like UNICEF, Pratham Rajasthan, SERVE and Dream Catchers Foundation.[9]

Area of work

With community mobilization and sustainability as the guiding parameters, the NGO aims to:

Impact

• over 77,000 girls brought back to school

• 30,914 girls trained as girl leaders

• 4,000 SMC formed

• Over 4,000 active Team Balika members

• Learning Outcomes among 28,000 children

• Hindi reading of a story went up from 15% to 35%

• English reading of a sentence and above increased from 9% to 29%

• Math Skills in doing simple multiplication and division improved from 11% to 29%

Recognition

Educate Girls has received the following awards:

Milestones

• 2008-2010 Won government approval to start a pilot project in 500 schools in Pali. • 2010 Scaled to 2,342 government schools across entire Pali District. • 2011 Signed a MOU with the government to replicate the model in 2,083 schools in Jalore district. • 2013 signed a MOU with the government to replicate the model in Sirohi district.

References

  1. ↑ Novel project may improve prospects of girl child education The Hindu, Jun 26, 2011
  2. ↑ Educate Girls: Official Impact Numbers Educate Girls, 2014
  3. ↑ When Girls Returned to the Classroom India Today, December 15, 2014
  4. ↑ Educate Girls: What We Do
  5. ↑ "Team Balika: Champions for girls' education". GlobalGiving.org.
  6. ↑ Educate Girls - Creative Learning and Teaching (CLT) Center for Education Innovations, April 30, 2013
  7. ↑ "A Review of the Rajasthan Education Initiative (REI)". EducationInnovations.org.
  8. ↑ Rajasthan Education Initiative Government of Rajasthan Official Website
  9. ↑ Educate Girls: History
  10. ↑ "2014 Wise Awards". Wise-Qatar.org.
  11. ↑ "Women of Worth: About the Nominee - Safeena Husain". NDTV.com.

External links

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