Until Now: Within a short duration of 3 years, the Vidhyalaya has expanded from 1 center and 15 children in Gonwara to 3 centers and 135 children. The three educators provide special play-and-teach methods to the children, along with more conventional methods, to teach language, mathematics and social skills. The team encourages creative thinking by engaging kids in art and craft activities. Empowerment comes from education that extends into spreading awareness about issues plaguing the community in this rural part of India. Asha Samajik Vidhlaya spreads awareness about various government programs/schemes, child labor issues, exploitation etc., while expanding its education-related work in the other Mushar tolas and flood-affected communities in the adjoining areas.

Your Contributions: Your Contributions will support teacher salaries and school supplies including books, uniforms, health camp for children and such expenses. Donate to Asha Samajik Vidyalaya.

Balia Gram Unnayan Samity (BGUS) was formally established in 1979 and is based in Balia village of West Bengal with 10 centers in the neighboring villages. It works in diverse spheres among the underprivileged in the Haripal Block of Hugli district, including education, health, sanitation, nutrition, income generation, agriculture and the environment.

Until Now: Between 1986 and 2005, BGUS, in collaboration with Christian Children's Fund (CCF), implemented a sponsorship program for 1059 families and children. During this period they established numerous projects including a soil testing laboratory, a pisciculture unit, grain banks, a book bank, a library, an agro-service centre and a poultry production unit, which have greatly benefited the poor farming community in the region. CCF phased out its funding in 2005, due to an end of its normal funding cycle. Since then, BGUS has scaled down its operations significantly, and a number of programs have now become self sufficient. Asha began its involvement with BGUS in October 2006, and has funded three programs related to their education initiatives. BGUS runs 10 pre-primary centers, which instill early learning habits and prevents drop out from school. In addition, the schools provide meals and health check-ups for the children. Secondly, they run a coaching program which helps students from economically backward families to cope with the school work and remain competitive with students from more affluent families who can afford private tuitions and have educated parents. In addition, BGUS also runs a book bank which lends books to poor students, including students belonging to villages outside of BGUS's program area. Due to their years of experience in the area, the projects are well-run and share a good rapport with the community. The organization has been successful in involving the community by holding regular meetings with the mothers of the children and by having them as volunteers to cook the mid-day meals for the children.

What's Next: BGUS plans to construct a separate reading room and computer center that will be attached to the book bank. Since the demand for the books is very high and the needs of all students cannot be fulfilled, this room will be used by students to read and gather information from different text books. Additionally, a computer center will be of use to students learning computers, looking for additional information and for graduating students looking for employment. BGUS also plans to renovate and expand its pre-primary schools.

Your Contributions: Donor contributions to Work an Hour 2008 will enable funding the construction of the reading room/ computer center and additional money will go into re-construction/ infrastructure development of two pre primary schools. Donate to Balia Gram Unnayan Samity.

In the drought prone coastal community of Bharuch district, the population is primarily dependent on farming and consequently on yearly monsoons. In the absence of conducive environmental conditions, the farmers are forced to migrate to nearby areas to work in mines and factories. The direct result is high drop-out rates from schools and low literacy rates. This is where Gram Vikas Trust comes into the picture with the goal of enhancing self-development, action and empowerment through education.

Until Now: Gram Vikas Trust started in 1999 with real-time surveys in the coastal communities to identify local resources and regions with low literacy rates (37%), poor health care and unemployment. With this real-time information, GVT was ready to begin work in regions needing immediate attention in any of the organization's focus areas: education, health, natural resource management and women empowerment. GVT has expanded its function in 141 villages since 1999, including education programs in 46 villages. A holistic approach towards poverty alleviation and rural empowerment - that extends from education to developmental activities such as farm forestry, soil & water conservation, agricultural improvement, and management of savings & credits scheme - fits the needs of the community through facilitation by village institutions and self-help groups.

Your Contributions: Asha has been supporting the balwadi program for GVT since 2005. Your contributions will help with construction of balwadi on Lakhigam and provides for basic furniture and education toys for the children. Donate to Gram Vikas Trust - Balwadi Project.

At a juncture when many NGOs are questioning the applicability of conventional education systems to their projects, there are some such as Jeevan Gnanodaya who don't have a choice but to adopt an alternative path. The focus at Jeevan Gnanodaya is children who have hearing impairment. Over the last two decades, the organization has identified children with acute hearing disability whose adversity is compounded by severe economic constraints. While providing hearing aids & other learning materials, the need for formal education at the center is addressed through speech therapy. Earlier, such students were limited to jobs with relatively low salaries. Currently, through an initiative along the lines of ITI, Jeevan Gnanodaya has helped students graduate with a vocational skill set, making them highly competitive, and widened their spectrum of choices to include employment in factories with better remuneration.

In the milieu of agencies that support people with disabilities, Jeevan Gnanodaya has tried to go a step forward in implementing innovations in their teaching philosophy. Some fundamental research exists which has shown that mastery of one language for the children gives them a great chance to master a second language. Hence in order for good cognitive development in special children, it is necessary to adopt a dual-language training, where a child is encouraged to use a primary training language - maybe mother tongue - and then another language for mutual interactions, such as sign language. The above philosophy, though successfully implemented in the West, comes at a significant cost in terms of trained professionals & teaching materials. The problems are enhanced in a country like India with multiple languages, varied culture & lack of qualified teachers.

Your Contributions: While Jeevan Gnanodaya wrestles with these issues, through new initiatives on both the school & employment fronts, a greater number of their students continue to attain economic self sufficiency. They are currently in need of furniture at their facility and a van to shuttle their students to the ITI training center. Donate to Jeevan Gnanodaya.

Jeevan Sadhana Vidya Niketan is the educational wing of Shanti Sadhana Ashram & has been active in the Tribal areas of Assam since 1989. Marginalized as these communities are, poverty is rampant & literacy rate is a paltry 20% or less. Most people in this area migrate for employment. Children in particular become embroiled in an undesirable situation, are forced into labor and in time, it becomes difficult to extricate them from this mire since they miss school for extended duration & get left behind by their peers in formal schools.

Until Now: Shanti Sadhana Ashram has tried to mitigate this problem by addressing it in a threefold manner, through self-employment, health & education schemes. Programs in mushroom cultivation, preservation of medicinal plants & food processing have helped generate local employment for the population. A new initiative to produce sanitary napkins from organic materials through low-cost, innovative technologies has been proposed to supplement employment generation schemes while improving women's hygiene in the community. As a means of addressing the education component, Jeevan Sadhana Vidya Niketan runs 8 bridge schools in Kamrup and Lakhimpur district of Assam for children between the ages of 2 & 12. Several years of curriculum that the children are likely to have missed is imparted in a condensed manner through techniques the NGO has devised. These bridge schools help children transition into the formal Govt. school system with greater ease.

Kaorakhali Jana Sevashram(KJSA) was established in 1971 by local community volunteers with a view to providing education to the children of Kaorakhali village. In the aftermath of a devastating flood in 1983, it was registered as a voluntary organization with various programs to spread education, socio-economic development and to raise health awareness in the community. A large proportion of children in this area have illiterate parents who live below the poverty line and are unable to prepare them for primary school. The schools run by KJSA provide pre-primary education without which a number of children would find entrance to government primary schools an insurmountable task. Pre-primary education instills a love for learning in the children and provides them with an introduction to reading, writing and arithmetic. KJSA is the only such institution available in that area.

Until Now: Kaorakhali Jana Sevashram runs 4 pre-primary schools in Kaorakhali N., Kaorakhali S., Purba Gabtola and Jamtola with a total of 345 children from ages of 3 to 6 enrolled. The school follows Montossori methods of teaching and provides mid-day meals to the students as an added incentive.

What's Next: The immediate goals are to improve infrastructure in all four schools. The schools lack basic needs such as clean drinking water and toilets. The first priority is to provide drinking water filters and 2 toilets in each of the schools. Secondly, the current amount of Rs 3.50/meal towards mid-day meals is insufficient with rising inflation and this budget would be increased to Rs 5/meal with this year's funding. Additionally, other infrastructure such as benches, tables, new learning material for the teachers and the students will be provided for, along with construction of another three schools. Also, one of the main long-term goals is to improve the quality of education and decrease attrition in the 4 schools. Finally, another main goal is to apply new methodologies to assess student and teacher performance.

Mandra Lions Club (MLC) was a youth group formed in 1975 by a well-established NGO called Mandra Unnayan Sansad and is currently based in Purulia district. While this organization has been involved in many projects related to the betterment of socio-economic issues faced by the community, education of children in remote and rural areas has been a primary focus area since 1992-1993. The group started with pre-primary centers and special education centers and in 1996, constructed special education centers for children who had dropped out or never attended school. By 2001 MLC had become a representative of the West Bengal Education Network (WBEN) as well as National Alliance for the Fundamental Rights to Education (NAFRE).

Until Now: Mandra Lions Club has initiated unique programs in the area such as the "school in a bag" program to have a mobile home educator go from village-to-village with innovative teaching aids in the tribal language to the villages of Barelahar, Mamudi, Lewa, Saparambera, Kamlabahl, Kurpahar and Surjandi. This and another recently initiated pre-school educational pilot program are targeted towards tribal children since a baseline survey found that a large proportion of children of tribal community in Ajodhaya hill are either dropping out, non-enrolled or, irregular. The main reason behind these issues is a communication problem between the teachers and students since the teachers communicate in Bengali in the classrooms but the children speak a tribal language. In this regard, MLC has introduced the program in the tribal language by involving the local tribal youth and has developed educational materials in a script easily accessible to the tribal children.

What's Next: The organization's long term plans are to eventually set up residential educational centers in the area with the goal of being able to influence the government's education policy. In the shorter term MLC will continue to work towards the education of tribal children in the area.

Sundarban is an ecological treasure and home to more than 8 million people in the delta. Relatively isolated from the mainland and surrounded by saline water, there is limited land that is seen fit for cultivation and therefore the area is completely reliant on rainwater irrigation. As the communities don't reap more than one crop a year and find it hard to find accessible markets for their produce, they end up facing crippling economic hardship. Obvious side effects of being financially challenged, such as absence of any health care facilities within a 3 to 4 hour radius and lack of access to education, are quite evident. This is where Mukti (Freedom) comes into play.

Until Now: Since 2003, Mukti, along with other locals, has worked for their empowerment at the grassroots level in identifying a five-pronged approach to address issues in Education, Health, Livelihood, Ecology, and Culture. They have since established one primary health care unit to cater to emergencies, and also helped construct more than 3000 low-cost latrines to prevent pollution from human waste. In spreading awareness about the ecological advantages the mangrove provides to the community, Mukti has inculcated the need to safeguard it among the populace. Mukti is also trying to start a biotechnology lab to increase agricultural production in saline water in addition to training youth in animal husbandry. Lastly, to overcome the isolation of the communities that tends to alienate them from the mainstream, a cultural movement has helped people to integrate and work together.

Ratanmani Vidyalaya was launched in 1994 to provide non-formal education for the dropout and non-school going children in and around Baishnabpur in the Sabroom Subdivision of South District of Tripura. From 1997 through 2000, this school produced a batch of students each year that graduated from grade V and got admission into the government run high school. Subsequently, in 2000, this school was recognized by the state government as a formal primary education school.

Until Now: Today the school has 280 children with hostel facilities for 60 children. Notably, over the years, the school has produced 8 students who have later been recruited into the Special Police Force, an opportunity they may not have had without the solid primary education that Ratanmani Vidyalaya provides. The school hopes to continue creating such opportunities for tribal students in this far flung area by expanding to providing education until grade X. The school currently has 5 class rooms in one building and is in need of an additional building for expansion.

What Next:
     Construction of building for the school (14 meters x 6.7 meters at Rs. 3240/sq.meter)
     Expanded hostel facilities for children who come from remote hamlets and may drop out because they cannot travel long distances to school every day.

True education encompasses many areas related to the harmonious development of the Head, Heart and Hands. With the vision of providing compulsory education for all tribal and rural chidren in Boxma village in Orissa, Sri Swami Om single handedly started SRISHTI. SRISHTI believes that education for the rural children has more to do with assimilation of ideas and strengthening of mind, expanding the intellect and enabling self sustainability. Since 1990 the trust has been serving the underprivildged Kissan, Munda and Oram tribes living within the reserve forest area. With a holistic approach towards education and empowermment, SRISHTI established the first high school in the gram panchayat. It also established an environmental awareness program and brought the much needed health program to the community where malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy are rampant due to malnutrition and lack of hygiene.

Until Now: Since inception the school has grown 8 teachers strong with 150 children who travel as much as 25 kms from within the forest reserve. The founder and staff are outstanding community educators who served the trust without compensation for 15 years from 1990 to 2005 yet provided midday meals to the children - sometimes the only meal the children got during the day. The school strives to provide quality education following the State Government curriculum. The children from the school have gone out and found employment in state agencies with "hope for a better future". The trust has provided a mechanism to ensure enrolment of girls in high school and provides women with good health facilities that are not otherwise avaliable in the area. Success is reflected in the ability of tribal girls to obtain employment as police women, post office women, nurses and teachers, leading to sustainability within the community. SRISHTI intends to ensure that every child in the rural areas of Orissa gets the right to water, food, health and education.

Shristi Special Academy was established in 1995 with a unique set of programs designed to enable independence among the mentally challenged, developmentally delayed, and those with autism and attention deficit hyperactive disorders of all ages. Rehabilitation at Shristi includes therapeutic intervention with a focus on special education, sensory stimulation, physiotherapy, language stimulation, and occupational therapy, while following the UNICEF curriculum. Its programs are characterized by personalized individual interventions for each child and a holistic approach, which includes all areas of growth and development. The teachers at Shristi are special educators trained to work with mentally challenged and autistic children.

Until Now: Shristi has grown, in twelve years, to 160 differently abled children and 44 staff including therapists, instructors and support staff. Shristi has undertaken to provide Community Based Rehabilitation services to two locations in villages of Bangalore South District: Basaveswarnagar and Chennanahalli. Shristi defined the values underlying its programs as those of unconditional acceptance and giving, positivism and an unwavering belief that there can be improvement in every mentally challenged individual, no matter how severe the extent of retardation or how long the time required. With its underlying principles and passion to serve the special children, Shristi reaches out to 120 mentally challenged and autistic individuals at its two campuses, and to another 40 normal children through its Balwadi (preschool) for rural children. Through an intensive, individualized and child-focused training program, Shristi has enabled many children with developmental delays to go to normal schools, and still other individuals to gain employment.

Srividyasharam Nursery and Private School was launched as an experiment in June 2002 in a village called Vadakurangaduthurai with the goal of bringing quality modern and value-based education to the much neglected rural area. The small hamlet nestles on the left bank of the River Cauvery, 21 kms from Kumbakonam on the bus route to Thiruvaiyaru, inhabited predominantly by agricultural laborers with seasonal work.

Until Now:The school now serves 377 children from a humble start of 47 in 2002, from ages 3 to 11. Starting with Pre-KG in 2002, the school now caters to up to the 5th grade. The school infrastructure includes 20 spacious class rooms, teaching aids, a good computer room with 16 computers, an audio-visual room, library, play ground and play area for the children, a modern kitchen and a big dining hall to serve midday meals to children. Teachers are trained in Montessori teaching methods. What's Next:
    Add infrastructure for Grades VI through X (Matriculation) by 2013 and Grades XI and XII (Higher Secondary School) by 2015.
    Construct accommodation for 10 teachers to address teacher retention issues due to the remote location of the school.
    Bring a promising future to the children after they leave Srividyashram with the modern education they get, both within and outside the Vadakurangaduthurai community.

The Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) is a not-for-profit, non-religious, nonpolitical, voluntary organization, founded in 1984 by a group of like-minded young medical students from the Government Medical College, Mysore. In its initial years, the SVYM ran two rural dispensaries at Chinnadagudihundi and Thumnerale villages. As time passed, the SVYM realized that healthcare was just one aspect of bettering the tribals' lives. Sustained enrichment could be achieved only through education, a steady earning and saving capacity, a broader social outlook and a realization by the tribals that their tomorrow could be better than their today.

Until Now:With the holistic vision of empowering the community, SVYM started the Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning, bringing much needed education to the tribal community. The Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning at Hosahalli, a semi-residential school, provides quality education to over 400 children. This school services all tribal colonies in H.D.Kote district. Facitilies such as classrooms, Laboratory for Experiential Learning in Science, library with nearly 8500 books, 228 audio cassettes, 550 CD ROMs, dormitory accommodation for the students and food/nutritional support which would have otherwise been outside the reach of this school, are available to the students only due to generous contributions from donors.

What Next:The organization has realized that rural children in the area that are going to government schools are not able to cope up with mathematics, English and science education since the quality of education and appropriate lab facilities in government schools is generally poor. SVYM identified a low cost solution: a well equipped lab with trained teachers - "A Mobile Science Lab" - which would travel to the government schools on fixed days of the month. A trained science teacher/demonstrator will accompany this lab and experiments will be performed in the government schools. These experiments will be low cost and locally contextualized for the easier understanding of the students.

It wasn't too long before the orgnization came across yet another key challenge - trained teachers willing to work in tribal areas. This brought about the genesis of Vivekananda Tecaher's Training and Research Center to train tribal students and enable them to get a formal qualification in teaching. This will not only help improve the quality of learning outcomes amongst the tribal children, but also provide much needed employment opportunity to the upcoming generation of tribals.

The Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) is a not-for-profit, non-religious, nonpolitical, voluntary organization, founded in 1984 by a group of like-minded young medical students from the Government Medical College, Mysore. In its initial years, the SVYM ran two rural dispensaries at Chinnadagudihundi and Thumnerale villages. As time passed, the SVYM realized that healthcare was just one aspect of bettering the tribals' lives. Sustained enrichment could be achieved only through education, a steady earning and saving capacity, a broader social outlook and a realization by the tribals that their tomorrow could be better than their today.

Until Now: With the holistic vision of empowering the community, SVYM started the Viveka Tribal center for Learning bringing the much needed education to the tribal community. The Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning at Hosahalli, a semi-residential school provides quality education to over 400 children.This school services all tribal colonies in H.D.Kote district. Facitilies such as Class rooms, Laboratory for Experiential Learning in Science, Library with nearly 8500books, 228 audio cassettes, 550 CD ROMs , Dormitory accommodation for the students and Food/Nutritional Support which would have otherwise been outside the reach of this school are available to the students only due to generous contributions from donors.

What Next: The organization has realized that rural children in the area that are going to government schools are not able to cope up with Mathematics, English and Science education since the quality of education and apprpriate lab facilities in government schools is generally poor. SVYM identified a low cost solution the a well equiped lab with trained tecahers to such government schools - "A Mobile Science Lab" - whoch will travel in the schools on fixed days of the month. A trained science teacher/Demonstrator will accompany this lab and experiments will be performed in the Government schools. These experiments will be low cost and locally contextualized for the easier understanding of the students.
It wasn't too long before the orgnization came across yet another key challenge - trained teachers willing to work in tribal areas. This brought about the genesis of Vivekananda Tecaher's Training and Research Center to train tribal students and enable them to get a formal qualification in teaching. This will not only help improve the quality of learning outcomes amongst the tribal children, but also provide much needed employment opportunity to the upcoming generation of tribals.

Vigyan Ashram was established on the principle of Rural Development through Education Systems (RDES) by Dr. Shrinath Kalbag. This RDES module was further developed to form Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) as a means of enabling technology transfer through education. The model is currently implemented in more than 25 schools across Maharashtra.

IBT steers away from the current system of 'rote' education & its assessment through exams, to an innovative method of imparting education. The program leans towards 'learning while doing' where student assessment is self evident. This method of teaching does not categorize itself as vocational training and is based on the belief that the mind is stimulated through hands-on participation, since knowledge is generated through productive work in the first place.

To elaborate on this method, a Vigyan Ashram teacher explains that, while learning about poultry farming, students at the Vigyan Ashram were asked to design the poultry building first on paper, including the estimates. Here they applied mathematics. Using levels, plumb lines and fabrication of the steel trusses taught them geometry. Developing Poultry Costing Sheet taught them accounting. Applying finishing touches such as painting at the end of construction gave them a sense for quality. Ultimately they learned effective teamwork from this exercise by distributing the work among themselves. The assessment of their learning is thus self evident as participation from everyone is from get-go.

This residential school needs up-gradation of its hostel facility in addition to support for teachers' remuneration & other recurring expenses for this year. Donate to Vigyan Ashram.