Literacy India

Is a programme affiliated with the National Open School and acts as a full-time schooling programme for children from low-income communities. The programme focuses on providing nutrition to the children through free mid-day meals, encourages usage and learning of technology, improves leadership skills, engages students in sports, extra-curricular and community activities and also guides them to a better future through imparting functional vocational courses.

The Pathshala Programme has been conceived for children who may not have access to education at all. It sets out to educate such children and allow them to join mainstream education in future. The programme employs activity-based learning processes, to facilitate children who may be coming from different economic backgrounds and may not have had any formal education, to grasp concepts.

Bridge classes are held regularly to help the children catch up with their studies. Digital learning is also part of the curriculum to familiarise the children with technology. Counselling sessions and career guidance sessions are also held to inform the children of opportunities for the future.

Focuses on bringing education within the reach of tribal and remote communities. It acts to empower children from underprivileged sections to stand up against social evils like child marriage, transportation challenges, non-acceptance of the significance of education, and where parents are unable to aid their children in learning.

Talented students are identified and sponsored to complete their education in English medium private and Government schools in addition to supporting them to pursue vocational and job-oriented courses.

Literacy India has launched an environmental project in 2019-20 to initiate groundwater recharge. Partnering with volunteers from Mastercard, it has started three rainwater harvesting systems in Gurgoan, Haryana, Vadodara, Gujrat and Jhalawar Rajasthan.

To reduce emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels the organisation installed a ten-kilowatt solar panel at its premises in 2017 which is to date providing the required energy to sustain its operations.

This programme focuses on the concept of ‘Earn while you learn'. It attempts to provide skills to women that can be used to earn an income and be self-reliant. The beneficiaries of this programme are selected through community surveys and are admitted into a training process. Vocational training is provided to the women and on successful completion, are awarded certificates.

These trained women and youngsters are placed in garment factories, export houses, private companies, corporate houses, beauty parlours and so on as per their relevant skills. Some even start their own businesses with an interest-free loan provided by Literacy India.

Literacy India’s flagship programme, Vidyapeeth, aims to make quality education accessible to all with a special emphasis on holistic development of children hailing from the lowest economic strata of society.Vidyapeeth focuses on effectively sustaining the interest of the students through the use of multimodal approach to learning to strengthen the academic base and lay the foundation for future employability. Additionally, the project addresses a child’s nutritional and healthcare needs, engages the guardians, emphasises on self-expression through various forms of art, offers vocational training, and raises awareness about one’s civic and social rights and responsibilities. Affiliated to the National Open School, the Vidyapeeth centre functions as a full-time schooling programme at Bajghera village, New Palam Vihar, Gurugram, and offers the following infrastructural facilities for classes Pre-KG to XII.

According to Literacy India’s assessment, inadequacies of the elementary education system principally contribute to poor learning outcomes in children attending government schools.The Gyantantra Udbhav (Digital Dost) programme has been successfully implemented in government primary schools, and is also being utilised by NGO partners, across 100+ Locations in Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Noida UP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Ladakh, Odisha, Jharkhand & West Bengal to reduce the learning gap in children. GDD integrates knowledge with life-skills through additional self-help modules on varied topics like child abuse, importance of maintaining basic hygiene, gender-neutral division of tasks, and health issues including HIV-positive symptoms. These modules positively impact the immediate families of the learners, as well as the wider community, through permeation of personal and social good practices.