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FORWORD's educational activities were started in 2001 and Asha for Education has been involved with it ever since. The purpose of this project is to empower the Dalit children in these regions with the help of evening centers which will complement a child's daytime primary education. The lowest grade of the students studying at these centers is UKG and the highest is class 12. In addition to improving academic performance and reducing dropouts, FORWORD works to create awareness among children about social issues and to motivate parents and the community to take more interest in the education of their children.

All the rural communities impacted by the project are about 50-60 miles south of Chennai in Kanchipuram district where the land prices are exorbitant (to a meaningless level), and the Chennai landgrab is at its worst. Since Chennai is growing fast, there is increasing amounts of money chasing land, including from the wealthy middle class looking for a holiday retreat by the hills and lakes of this region (Javadi and Thiruvannamalai). They do not ask inconvenient questions about who was driven out of the land they acquired.

Communities served by this project essentially consist of daily laborers who own small, subsistence-level pieces of land, but often do not have clear title to any land (although they have been living on it for centuries). They make a living working for farmers cultivating in relatively small pieces of land (who own 10's of acres of productive land).

As opposed to similar rural communities that are located further away from metropolitan areas, the difficulties in the target communities are multiplied several fold due to targeting by landgrab mafia consisting of a number of colluding parties whose goal is to displace and drive away these communities. Their strategy is to make the situation unbearable enough for the current occupiers so that they can either "reclaim" the land or acquire it cheap through a distress sale or foreclosure. For example, while it may be hard to believe, corrupt electricity board officials purposely cut off power supply to these villages to make life difficult for the villagers and force them to leave. Similar obstructions to water/wetland management have occupied these communities as well. Please note that these are peaceful communities, they try to survive by adapting to a great deal of abuse. When these efforts fail, thuggish violence is used to drive these people away from their lands.

In such an unstable environment, children are the most affected. Importance of schooling and academic achievement is undermined when compared against day-to-day survival. Dropping out of schools and migrating to the city to work early in childhood are common occurrences and so is child marriage. It is in this hostile environment that FORWORD works to motivate learning and create awareness among the children and the community.

Most of the children who were catered to by this project during its initial years were first generation school goers. Majority of them are now getting their higher secondary education.

A typical story of how FORWORD was able to make a life-changing impact is that of Ms. Sudha, a former student and current teacher at the FORWORD evening learning center in Vilankadu.

Sudha has grown from being a vulnerable timid, deprived and supposed to be "evil spirit-haunted" girl, to being a bold, informative, clear-minded leader who guides the children of her village, monitoring their studies and organizing celebrations. Vilankadu is a Dalit and remote village in Achiruppakkam Block of Kanchipuram District, which is not connected by transportation facility. For transportation, the villagers have to walk two kilometers to catch a bus, which services only one or two times a day. There is a primary school (up to Std V), run by the Government of Tamil Nadu, in Vilankadu. For middle and high school, the children have to travel to Achiruppakkam, which is eight kilometers from Vilankadu. Vilankadu is situated in a forest area. The dalits who live an aloof life here are landless agricultural coolies. There are around sixty five thatched huts in Vilankadu. FORWORD has an evening learning center functioning here for the past 3 years where 27 children from IV standard to VIII th standard and nine children from 1st standard to 3rd standard get helped with their academics every evening.

No girls have reached higher secondary schooling in this area so far and Sudha was the first girl to get higher secondary education in 2009, thanks to FORWORD. Sudha was molded along with other adolescent girls of her village by the outreach programs of FORWORD. In 2009, when she was waiting for the results of her higher secondary examinations, she fell sick with a kind of severe skin allergy. Her parents who are illiterate agricultural labourers, as per the custom of their village, took her to different temples and forced her to live there thinking that she was possessed by an evil spirit. They were so superstitious; they will not listen to any reasonable ideas of healing. In the end, she became depressed and started behaving in a strange way. Her parents intensified their superstitious treatments and they believed she was mentally disturbed. The villagers were supportive of the parents. It is to be noted that the younger brother of Sudha named Subash was born mentally challenged. FORWORD volunteers had to do extensive counseling to the parents and they stopped the “temple and poojari” treatments to the girl. After a period of continuous and patient interventions, FORWORD was able to bring the girl back to normalcy. By this time, her results had come and she had passed in her higher secondary examinations. Our efforts to help her with further studies were not successful, because by the time she recovered, the admission time for all regular courses were over. In the meantime, our evening centre teacher Deepa could not continue due to her pregnancy and hence Sudha was appointed to conduct the evening classes of the learning centre. This had a very positive effect on Sudha and she is now an entirely different person with self confidence and having a deep sense of self dignity. Her positive attitude has rubbed off on the students as well as they are performing very well in their academics.

A few other success stories:
• S.Raghu from Thandarai Pudhucheri, is now doing his III year degree course.
• K.Ramachandran from Kudalore is in his II year degree course
• S.Suguna Sundari, a visually challenged scholarship recipient of asha is now working as a teacher in a Government Higher Secondary school in Thiruvallur.
• K.Yamuna, a student from Irumpuliyur is now in her III year degree course.
• L.Sheeba, who was helped for her M.A Sociology is now working in a firm and is the sole supporter of her family where father, mother and sister all bed-ridden with serious medical concerns.
• B.Vinoth a scholarship recipient, helped with his DCA is working in an I.T.Company and is supporting his poor family.

The communities served by FORWORD face the problem of "land grab" as discussed in the challenges section. In these unstable and highly marginal communities, it is not clear to a child whether his/her family will be driven out of their homes tomorrow, or whether their village as they know it will continue to exist. With many men out of jobs or facing a shaky future, the mood is tense. Alcoholism and domestic violence are on the increase as one would expect. Women and teenage girls sometimes turn to sex work in desperation.

Since its inception in 2003 the FORWORD after-school project has reached around 50 such villages in this belt. At any given time about 13-15 new community after-schools receive pilot support. The greatest achievement of FORWORD has not only been reducing school dropouts, improving attendance and achieving better academic results, but also convincing the local communities of the benefits of the learning centers and successfully handing over administration and day-to-day running of these centers to the local communities. In addition, this every day event encourages the involvement of the community in the running of the local government school. While they may not always be able to influence its functioning, the school officials and teachers are at least aware that someone is paying attention to their performance.

The entire community benefits from this stable reaffirmation of healthy habits and values that happens every evening. It also serves as a crucial glue of keeping the community together. When your child and your neighbor's study together in the village clearing every day, it encourages empathy and people hold each other up during hard times.

About 30-40 children in each village get a stable learning environment and a nutritious snack every weekday, as well as field-trips and periodic opportunities to meet children from a variety of communities across the district and showcase their learning and talents. Most importantly, they also get a consistent reinforcement of a crucial message from their parents and the community that their education, character and healthful development is of vital importance, regardless whether the community as a whole survives or not.

Over the years, the majority of children have graduated successfully, gone on to study further, returned to help with the after-schools etc.

FORWORD has given a new meaning to the term 'self-sustenance' in reference to an educational project. While there are many charities that work for education of under-privileged children, there is no dearth for children that need helping, even in the few blocks that FORWORD works in. Being able to convince the community to take-over administration and funding of the evening learning centers, FORWORD has made it possible to keep rotating areas covered and take up a few new villages under the project every year. With every passing year, we are able to see a few more enlightened and happy villages without too much of an increase in financial overhead.

FORWORD has recently been requested by the community leaders from Thiruporur and Thirukazhukuntram Blocks in Kanchipuram District to work for the development of their children and efforts are on to start learning centers in these areas. Every year a few centers are ear-marked for handing over to the community making taking up new centers feasible. FORWORD aims to slowly expand working with the communities of this region without affecting the efficiency and reach of the existing learning centers.