Education India Project #24430

Help create a Billion Literates!

by One Billion Literates Foundation

Project Report | Jan 3, 2017
Joy of Giving at One Billion Literates

By Ruby Kamdin | Director

Quarterly Report – December 2016 – The Joy of Giving

This quarter is a quarter full of festivals and good cheer in India. Of course the festivals of Durga Puja and Diwali are known internationally, but this quarter also sees the whole of India celebrate one full week as the “Joy of Giving Week” or “Daan Utsav” as it is called. It starts on Gandhiji’s birthday, 2^nd October. Millions of people, however rich or poor, do a charitable act to help someone who is needier than them. It could be a millionaire writing a cheque for a few lakh rupees, or an under-privileged child teaching his old uncle a few sentences in English to get more business for his coffee cart.

OBLF is grateful to the 6 Corporates who put up Wish Trees, to fulfill not only some of the wishes of the Foundation, but also the wishes of each of our over 1000 rural kids spread over 25 villages. The sheer joy on the children’s faces when they received the toys of their choice makes the humungous logistics worth the while.

Our rural Coordinators also did their bit by putting in a lot of effort in listing, segregating, labelling and distributing the gifts.

Apart from running the program for the benefit of the rural children by bringing about a change in the quality and methodology of the education they receive, OBLF also has another very strategic aim – to empower the rural community as a whole, by empowering its women.

So we at OBLF work with rural women not just as instruments of the above change, but also as one of our target beneficiaries. The over 30 rural women now form the core of OBLF, imparting English language and Computer skills to the children, after being trained by us.

Our very first Coordinator, Swapna, now is our Lead Coordinator and works in a supervisory capacity. She also acts as an office assistant to our Program Manager, and is confident enough to conduct kids’ assessments and also man our stalls at various events in the city. Swapna has this to say, “I lost my husband in 2008. I was teaching for a small amount of salary. Then after I joined OBLF I am able to stand on my leg and lead an independent life. After joining I have learnt English and basic computers. I have also learnt to drive a scooter. Before, I stayed within the four walls. Now I am able to live independently. First time I got Rs.1,200/- p.m. Now I am getting Rs.10,000/-. Financially I am satisfied. I enjoy my work. I am grateful to OBLF.”

We have many Swapnas around us, and we aim to bring joy, confidence, dignity and independence in as many lives as we can.

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Oct 11, 2016
Creating One Billion Literates

By Ruby Kamdin | Director

Welcome to the dream of having One Billion Literates in India. As Gandhiji said, India lives in its villages. So we, at OBLF, decided that to change our country, we need to emancipate our rural youth from the chain of poverty and deprivation, arising from lack of quality education.

We fill the void in the public education system, by imparting basic English and computer skills to the children attending government schools in the rural areas, because we believe that in today’s globalized world, the knowledge of these two subjects can propel a child to aspire for high ranking white collar jobs, rather than the routine land-related or blue collar jobs the previous rural generations had to settle for.

Since the basis of any good education is the basic foundation that is laid, we teach in rural Government primary schools. This quarter saw the beginning of a new academic year, and we commenced the year as usual with a Baseline assessment, wherein each child – of the total 1025 – is assessed in English proficiency – both, spoken and written. Our rural Coordinators now use the Tablet very effectively as a tool of Assessment. Children are then placed in 4 groups – Junior, Junior High, Mid-level and Senior – based on this assessment, and not on the school grade they are in. This way, each child gets a proper foundation and no child is left behind. Also, we recognize that children learn at their own pace, but the public education system fails to take that into account.

We have developed our own content at all four levels and extensively use laptops, tablets, activity cards, story-telling, songs etc. as tools of pedagogy. Our aim is to teach, without the child knowing that s/he is learning. Interaction between teachers and students is given a lot of importance and hence we keep the average student / teacher ratio to about 20:1

Our program is very popular with both parents and children. The kids are interested enough in it to even come one hour before the school starts. This pleases the parents who have to leave home early for work, and are assured that the children are in a safe environment, utilizing their time fruitfully. And that is why this academic year, we were able to expand our program from 15 rural government schools with 500 children, to 25 schools impacting over 1000 children.

After all, any program is only as good as the happiness quotient of its beneficiaries.

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