Give HER the POWER to learn - Sponsor a smartphone, help underprivileged girls access online education.

15-year-old Gomti has been out of school for 18 months because of continued school closures, this has led to severe learning loss. Gomti dreamt of becoming a civil engineer but her dreams stand at a risk of being lost forever. Gomti belongs to a low-income family, where affording a smartphone especially for a girl's education is out of the question. Like Gomti, millions of girls living in poor households are being left behind from the education system due to a lack of access to devices to continue online learning. 

A study by the Right to Education forum highlights that boys are being given priority over girls in online studies due to the lack of an adequate number of mobile phones at home. Technology disparities can have a permanent impact on girls continuing their education, and remote learning has made education for girls from marginalized communities even more inaccessible

 Only 28% of rural households’ children have internet access to the home. For girls, the impact of school closures due to the pandemic threatens to leave almost 10 million girls out of school. The longer girls stay out of school, the more vulnerable they become, with fewer chances of returning to school. The major challenge of remote learning is the disparity in access from electricity, internet connections to devices like smartphones. 

We need to act HERE and NOW to save decades of progress in girls' education. There is a desperate need to bridge the technology gap to support girls in low-income communities by distributing technological devices. 

By investing in smartphones girls will have equal access to online education and opportunities. This is why we are raising funds for 500 smartphones that will enable 500 girl leaders to leverage their network to reach 10,000 adolescent girls to access online education and learning material. Prompt remedial actions must be adopted to ensure girls are not denied their fundamental right to education. 

Each smartphone kit will have a smartphone, power bank and mobile stand. 

We can support the dreams of the girls by helping them have free and fair access to online learning and information. They will also enable them to avail opportunities for skill-building. Girls who have been left out of the fold of education as it has moved to the online module will be able to access online education. The gaps in the learning outcomes for the girls which have widened over the last two years will be addressed. Adolescent girls will have the power to institute safe spaces to bring about transformative change by harnessing the power of technology.

Access to smartphones for girls is a tool to move out of their dire circumstances and be educated, healthy and independent. 

With Milaan’s timely intervention, Gomti was given a smartphone kit to help continue her secondary education and prevent her from becoming a school dropout. Today, Gomti is enrolled in class 11th and with help of the phone has access to online classes and learning materials. She continues to aspire to realize her dream of becoming a civil engineer. 

Milaan is deeply invested in promoting and furthering the right to secondary education for adolescent girls in marginalized communities. 500 smartphones will impact 10,500 adolescent girls by having access to online education which will contribute to saving them from dropping out of school and further losing their learning outcomes. 

500 trained girl leaders with access to smartphone kits will mobilize 20 adolescent girls each to create a longitudinal impact on girls’ education in their communities. This means that one smartphone will support online education for 21 girls thus impacting 10,500 adolescent girls. 

We are driving efforts to ensure equitable access to digital learning for girls from low-income households so they have the choice to learn digitally, and access quality education.