Girl Child Education (Sponsor 30 girls' education)

Rasta has been working in the Khora since 2007 and is inhabited by people who have migrated from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, MP, Orissa and Haryana, in search of livelihood. Most of them work as rickshaw-pullers, rag pickers, factory workers, vegetable sellers, daily-wagers, etc. There is a high need in the community to promote girl child education, as there is no school in the vicinity. Girls are denied the basic right to education. The earnings of parents are also very low as they are mainly daily wage earners. Due to this, they do not want to send their children, especially girls to private schools. The result of which they are mostly engaged in family or sibling care. Rasta objective is to provide quality education to these underprivileged children. So that better future can be created for them without doing any compromise from the quality of education. Also, the girls are malnourished and suffering from poor health conditions. Therefore, providing nutrition and healthcare is of utmost importance. The hiring of well-qualified teachers and providing supporting infrastructure is also equally important. But due to the unavailability of funds, Rasta is facing difficulty in reaching out to more number of children.

The sex ratio of Khora according to the Census of 2011 is 881, which is quite less. The discrimination between girl and boy is quite prominent. Rasta has been educating girl children since 2006. In 2007, we established 10 learning centres for out-of-school/never-been-to-school girls. We began by reaching out to girl children of the underprivileged community of Khora Colony in Ghaziabad, as this community does not give much importance to the education of girls, particularly when they have to send their daughters to far away co-educational schools. Initially, we faced some resistance but the community developed trust in Rasta and more and more girl children got enrolled. Currently, we have 1200 girls studying in different centres. All our learning centres were non-formal until the Right to Education Act 2009 forced us to close them down. With great effort, we managed to obtain recognition from the Uttar Pradesh government for classes till VIII standard. As of now, about 650 students are studying in the formal stream. Students in Classes IX and X are being enabled to appear for exams through National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). Rasta is also laying special emphasis on adolescent health issues which used to go unaddressed earlier.

Till date, Rasta has educated more than 23000 children and mainstreamed more than 7300 children. Rasta has developed need-based teaching learning material (TLM) for classes 1st and 2nd in 3 subjects (Hindi, English and Maths). It has been observed that with continuous intervention and motivation, the community has started realising the importance of girl child education. They are now sending their daughters to school. Also, since the last 10 years, the drop rate has been decreased. Not only this, the children who had never left home before are now participating on a larger scale.

Many of our girls, after completing their education have opted for jobs to sustain their families and become independent.