Empower girls with education

Banswara is tribal dominated district of Rajasthan situated in south of the state. The overall literacy rate is only 57.2% which is far below the state average i.e. 67.06% and of which female literacy rate in the district is just 43.47% as compare to male literacy rate which is 70.8%.

There exists huge gender disparity in education. Male-female literacy gap is close to 27%. Girls drop out from school at a very early age and could not continue their education as they are busy in doing household chores and taking care of their younger siblings when their mothers are at work.

In order to improve access, retention and quality of learning among excluded marginalized girls, the intervention focuses on increasing their enrollment and retention at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhyalaya, launched by Government of India in 2004.

The school offers three years of residential education, with many more facilities as compared to the 'Regular Day Schools'.

Our intervention at schools mainly includes providing hand holding support in motivation of children and parents, capacity building of teachers with additional educational tools like TLM, BLES and providing girls with a platform where they can get exposure to outer mainstream world and to present their talent or skills through organizing educational trips or Workshops at district level.

VAAGDHARA is providing its facilitation and support to KGBVs, since last three years. As an impact of various interventions and activities, the retention rate at these residential schools is increased up to 98 percent and the processes also contributed to increased involvement of girls at KGBVs.

Life skill trainings and theater workshops are helping in building confidence amongst girls from the deprived community who were initially hesitant in expressing themselves.

The intervention has directly benefitted more than 2100 girls while about ten thousand people from the community are indirectly benefited through motivational and awareness campaigns on RTE.