This is a sample description for education. For the purpose of testing I will use the word EducationEducationEducationEducation.

Education

This is a sample description for Children. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Childrenchildrenchildren.

Children

SARIKA VIJAY DESAI

In India, illiteracy is pervasive. Thirty-seven percent of the world’s illiterate population (287 million people) live in India (UNESCO, 2017). In Hindi speaking states, 85-95% children cannot read at grade level and even in states like Maharashtra which perform well economically, 92% children in Grade 1 cannot read at grade level. As large as 50% of children who are part of the public education system in India do not graduate from grade 10. In urban slums, daily wage laborers living on meagre monthly income take burdensome loans for sending their children to private schools pointing that the people of India believe government schools do not offer quality education. This loss of faith reflects in the enrollment in public schools that fell by more than 13 million in 2015-16 as compared to 2010-11 (Source: U-DISE 2016-17).It is a serious concern for a country like India where over 90 million students would be ready to join the workforce in 2030 without proper skills or education. Despite spending USD 94 billion during 2002-2012 on primary education, India has been unable to solve the problem of decline in learning (2012, Mukherjee and Sikdar). Millions of children in Grade 2 can’t perform two-digit subtraction.Children in India are deprived of quality education in schools, knowledge, attitude and mindset in parents about the importance of education and adequate financial resources which leads to high dropouts in secondary education which causes an increase in unskilled labour force, child labour and early marriage. 
 Sparsha Charitable Trust believes that access to a safe and a supportive environment as well as opportunities for education leads to their overall development, unfolding the child’s potential. Our model works with children from the age of 3 years upto 18 years and prepares them for life so that they can break their cycle of poverty through the power of excellent education.Through our baseline studies in various slum pockets, Sparsha has realized that access to quality education is the main reason for significant number of children dropping out of school in slums of Suburban Mumbai. Presently in the operational area (5 areas in 3 Wards of Suburban Mumbai) the quality of infrastructure, services provided in the school, attitude of the management against the slum children is an area of grave concern. Hence, for a holistic development of the child, along with access to education, the child requires an ongoing academic support and strong parent guidance and involvement. 
 Our three flagship programmes are aimed to provide support to children from the most vulnerable communities from their formative years till they enter into the higher secondary to prepare them for the workforce and become leaders in their own communitiesShikshaWe use the play way method to develop the love for education in the children in the age group of 3 years to 6 years and help them become ready for school.SanskarWe re-enroll the children in the age group of 6 years to 14 years who dropout of school and help them build the learning gap by providing academic support for English and MathematicsSwayamWe provide academic support and guidance to children age group of 15 to 18 years who dropout of high school to complete a minimum education of 12th Grade. We also aim at developing skills and mindsets in these children to help them make the right choices in life.Our activities are focused towards the children, parents and the communities but our overall impact is assessed on number of children enrolled in schools and their academic performance. We are currently in the process of re-assessing our M&amp;E systems and are on the path to become a data-driven organisation. We are also developing systems to track the non-academic impact on the children as well.

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SHIKHA < SANSKAR < SWAYAM

A girl child is the most vulnerable group affected by COVID 19 pandemic. In normal situations also girls are denied their basic rights of survival and development. COVID 19 has left many marginalized families with no option but to stop the education of girls due to loss of livelihood. The economic profile of these families has deteriorated to the extreme. Sparsha's focus of the last 18 years has been on promoting the right of education for marginalized children with a special focus on girl child education.Our baseline studies show that almost 50% of girls drop out in the age group of 10 to 18 years due to the following reasons:<ul><li>Lack of motivation of parents in girl child education due to traditions and customs related to child marriage, menstruation, safety, and security.</li><li>Restricted by the parents to take care of their household and younger siblings.</li><li>Poor financial conditions and low priority to girl child’s education.</li><li>Protection from the scavengers of society.</li><li>Lack of availability of schools in the nearby vicinity.</li></ul>Sparsha works extensively with parents and the community at large to create awareness on girl child education through various activities and has seen a positive impact.  
 The project goal is to encourage and promote girl-child education in the age group of 6 to 18 years through various strategic interventions and programs.Objectives:<ul><li>Prevent dropouts among girl child students in the age group of 6 to 14 years and ensure them to continue their secondary education (up to std. 10)</li><li>Provide sponsorship to selected girl students in the age group of 15 to 18 years for their higher education post 10th std.</li><li>Provide opportunities for academic and non-academic excellence to girls.</li><li>Provide personality development and Develop leadership development opportunities through structured training and exposures.</li></ul> 
 <ul><li>Over a period of 3 years, Sparsha expects that at least 30 girls will be able to avail sponsorship for professional courses.</li><li>Zero drop out among girl child students in the age group of 6 to 14 years.</li><li>Development of role models in the community who could work as torch-bearers with Sparsha to spread awareness on girl child education.</li></ul>

Support Girl Child Education

In 2008, Sparsha launched the Shiksha project aimed at integrated holistic child development with primary focus on pre-primary education for underprivileged kids in Mumbai. As we have started our intervention in Mumbai slums we had identified children are dropped out due to various reasons amongst that main reason was there is no one at home to take care of their younger siblings &amp; due to that house hold chores girls are at home, to bring them back to school in our Sparsha centre they use to bring their smaller siblings. As the smaller children, increased we had started our intervention with them too.  
  While interacting with the parents and children we understood that these parents also care about the future of their children but lack the resources and opportunities to help their child grow. Sparsha works with parents who are illiterate or semi-literate migrant workers, daily wage workers, street hawkers, etc. many of the time they are unable to feed the children and left early for work due to that most of the children were undernourished and used to come to our centre with an empty stomach. Their attention span was very less, and they very much prone to illness. Through our intervention we have started Nutrition, quarterly medical check-up and monitoring their developmental needs along with that we stared preparing them for school. 
 So far Sparsha has impacted around 1050 children at the age group of 3 to 6 yrs. from 12000 families in 17 centres across different slum pockets in 3 Municipal wards in Mumbai. Also enrolled around 850 kids in 22 BMC schools to ensure enrolment of the children in the formal education system.Our aim in the near future is to spread its wings and widen its horizon to provide helping hands to more and more disadvantaged children.1.     Develop a structured, well-rounded foundation curriculum to nurture an interest in lifelong learning while preparing for school readiness.2.     To enhance holistic development of child by facilitating activities for finer and motor skills, social and emotional skills and language development3.     To promote education and increase access to education among low income communities through awareness and academic support. Spread awareness and promote long term benefits of education to families residing in slum communities.4.     Build a trust based network partnership with parents via effective engagement and feedback channels to encourage involvement and support for their child’s education.

SHIKSHA

Due to most of the hurdles in life it effects the education of the child. Also lack of quality education, lack of importance of education among the parents. are the major factors effecting to lack of interest in schooling .Most of the children are unable to cope up with age appropriate learning get drop out from school. 
 While interacting with the parents and children we understood that these parents also care about the future of their children but lack the resources and opportunities to help their child grow. Sparsha works with parents who are illiterate or semi-literate migrant workers, daily wage workers, street hawkers, etc. many of the time they are unable to feed the children and left early for work due to that most of the children were undernourished and use to come to our centre with empty stomach. their attention span was very less, very much prone to illness etc. Through our intervention we have started Nutrition, quarterly medical check-up and monitoring their developmental needs along with that we stared preparing them for school readiness .  
 So far Sparsha has impacted around 1050 children at the age group of 3 to 6 yrs. from 12000 families in 17 centres across different slum pockets in 3 Municipal wards in Mumbai. Also enrolled around 850 kids in 22 BMC schools to ensure enrolment of the children in the formal education system.Our aim in the near future is to spread its wings and widen its horizon to provide helping hands to more and more disadvantaged children.1.     Develop a structured, well-rounded foundation curriculum to nurture an interest in lifelong learning while preparing for school readiness.2.     To enhance holistic development of child by facilitating activities for finer and motor skills, social and emotional skills and language development3.     To promote education and increase access to education among low income communities through awareness and academic support. Spread awareness and promote long term benefits of education to families residing in slum communities.4.     Build a trust based network partnership with parents via effective engagement and feedback channels to encourage involvement and support for their child’s education.   Student retention is a major topic of conversation, and has been so for a while. It is essential to know about student retention because it has become the unit for measuring the overall success rate of Education. Everyone, including parents, policy makers, stakeholders of the school, considers student retention rate as the big thing.

SANSKAR

This is a sample description for Environment For the purpose of testing I will use the word Hunger & HomelessnessHunger & HomelessnessHunger & Homelessness.

Hunger & Homelessness

This is a sample description for Community & Rural Development. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Community & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural Development.

Community & Rural Development

The unprecedented crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic has impacted risks to the nutritional status and survival of young children in low-income in the rural and urban slum communities of India. Studies have depicted concern in an expected increase in child malnutrition due to no or decline household incomes, availability and affordability of daily food intake.According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations , though India is one of the world’s largest food producer of milk, pulses, and ranks as the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruit and cotton, yet ironically, the country is home to the largest population of hungry people.FAO estimates in ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report, that 189.2 million people are undernourished in India, which means 14 percent of the population is undernourished in the country. According to UNICEF, Sixty-nine percent of under-five deaths among children can be attributed to malnutrition in India. This will increase due to the pandemic.Over the past few  months of lockdown Sparsha team has conducted baseline survey to understand the issues faced by community members. Few of the issues which have emerged during our visits are as follows –● Majority of the families struggled to get access to basic food items due to non-availability and high price rise.● As most of the earning members of the family worked as a daily wage earner, loss of job due to pandemic had prevented them from accessing even one time meal for their family members.● Most of the families had more than 4-5 members, which added to difficulties in procuring food items due to the financial crisis.● It was observed that the majority of the children relied on mid-day meals in their schools for most of their nutritional requirements were deprived due to shut down of schools in their area. This has impacted directly their physical development and overall being.● Pregnant and Lactating mothers are deprived of basic nutritional requirement. 
 As part of intervention strategy implementation post Covid, Sparsha has identified3 slum communities spread across M (East) ward namely Bhimnagar,F (North) ward namely Ambedker nagar, Kokari agar. 150 children from each community will be identified and selected based on the severity of crisis faced by them in terms of·        Access to daily meal and regular availability of food items,·         families with pregnant and lactating mothers and·         families with children under 10 and·        Families with no income source. A total of 450 children will be part of the program. The intervention program aims towards effective distribution of Supplementary Nutrition for the 6 Months. (NOV 21 to JAN22).Per child cost will be 800 Rs/ Month.  
 y, through our project we 450 will go to sleep with a full stomach for at least 6 months, within those six months the child's physical &amp; mental wellbeing is ensured.Concentration of children will increase, which in turn will increase their learning capability, even the Gender Bias in the families will be reduced.

Annapoorna

“ It takes a village to raise a child” is an old  African proverb which in a true sense implies  to each  child more so for children living in a vulnerable and deprived community where access to health , education and nutritional requirements is still not their basic right but a luxury. They live each day with a hope to get through the day. Right from a tender age each child is conditioned by their family to survive all odds of abuse, violence, exploitation. This leaves them with no option to understand themselves, their needs,hopes and dreams. In such circumstances most of the children become vulnerable, lose their hope, a chance to hear out their unexplored dreams and talent.Every child needs a safe environment and positive reinforcement to explore themselves to develop holistically physically, emotionally, socially and mentally.  In most of the families in the slum communities surviving each day is the constant battle. Importance of education is the last priority. There are constant challenges of lack of support, lack of access to education,more so during pandemic wherein digital divide is a major concern and challenge faced leading to lack of interest towards education or increase in drop outs. 
 Over the last 21 years,  we at Sparsha CharitableTrust firmly believe that every child is unique and has own temperament, talent and learning style. With a mission to provide a quality education for each child along with a conducive and safe environment,we have over the years touched upon more than 25000 children and their families from various marginalized communities in the city of Mumbai. Our programs are designed in a way that parents' involvement and participation plays an equal role in enhancing each child’s progress. In the initial years of our intervention, the concept of parents involvement was not accepted much by many parents.We have been able to break through the barrier and involve the parents in each child’s life journey by conducting various awareness programs on positive parenting and the impact of a positive nurturing and environment around the child. Over the years, this has paved the way for our children to explore their unexplored talents, skills through various platforms provided to them. Each child involved in our Program is constantly made to believe that each one is unique,cared ,loved and talented and has the right to live their dreams in spite of all the hardship and challenges. We value individual needs and each child follows a unique path in learning to develop into a unique individual able to sustain themselves against all odds and strive towards their dreams. 
 1..Ensure school regularity among students by creating interest in the various subjects and also through various sports, cultural and team bonding activities.2.Identification of academically weaker students and helping them to understand the subjects better through personalized attention.3. To equip teachers to deliver high quality classroom learning through continuous teacher professional development courses, strengthening blended approach teaching and other required support. 4.Ensuring that the students perform well in their board examinations and alsohelping them with their future career path.5. Impart life skills for overall psycho-social development and introduce students to different career opportunities and connect them to relevant vocational courses as applicable.

SWAYAM

The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant problems like mass migration, job losses and even lack of digital access clearly seem to have impacted the education of poor students of Mumbai, who are dependent on the municipal schools. The BMC schools have seen a six percent drop in enrolments this year with only 2,48,277, as compared to the 2,63,180 enrolments last year — a difference of 14,903 students.Around four percent of students — i.e. 19,736 students — have left the education system in Mumbai this academic year; the BMC has registered only 6, 00,811 enrolments this year as compared to the 6, 20,547 enrolments in the last academic year in primary municipal, private-aided and primary unaided schools in Mumbai.The municipal corporation's own survey had revealed that around 40 percent of students do not have access to Android devices to access online education. While 64,290 students do not have Android phones, 38,122 students lack internet access. Due to which problems like the below Increase:·        There is a probability of many students, especially girls, having dropped out due to concerns over COVID-19 or the economic slowdown.·        There is a genuine concern of children being pushed into child labour·        There are chances of increase in early marriages. ·        Connectivity issues ( no Money for data recharge ) ·        Lack of handsets per family had 2-3 children using same phone for joining online class is very difficult.·        Children had lost interest in education as they are consequently passing for 2 years and have lost the fear of exams and assessment ·        Due to digitalization children have stop writing and reading books.·        Also non availability of educational toys they are not at all learning new things through the play way method .   
 OUR SOLUTIONAs part of intervention strategy implementation post Covid, Sparsha has identified6 slum communities spread across M (East) ward namely Bhimnagar, Banjarwada F (North) ward namely Ambedker nagar, Kokari agar.Shanti nagar  And L ward Hanuman nagar  And T ward Dumping Ground  patra chawl 250 children from each community will be  part of this activity . A total of 1500 children will be part of the program. The intervention program aims towards making education accessible . (OCT 21 to  MARCH22).Per child cost will be 745 Rs/ Month. 
 This Project will reach out to more than a thousand children, inducing in them a curiosity for reading and learning.

Phirti Pakhre

Sparsha Charitable Trust was founded by Sarika Desai. She completed her graduation in Child Development and Care from S.N.D.T. College. She worked with NASEOH, Sulbha School for mentally challenged children in the child-care space. While spending time with those innocent children, she realized that a child faces many problems as a part of society. She found this to be very disturbing and she wanted to change the situation for all children in our country. After completing her graduation, she opted for professional social work as her career. She took the admission for Masters in Social Work in Nirmala Niketan College of Social work. In the first year, she got an opportunity to understand our education system, worked closely with them, and learnt about the difficulties faced by underprivileged children in Mumbai. She has experience working with organizations like Prerna and Don Bosco.In 2004, she decided to launch the Sanskar project aimed at integrated child development with a primary focus on education and child rights in Mumbai under Sparsha Charitable Trust. Sparsha began its intervention by adopting 5 locations in Wadala on construction sites and slum pockets. While interacting with the parents and children she understood that these parents also care about the future of their children but lack the resources and opportunities to help their child grow. Sparsha works with parents who are illiterate or semi-literate migrant workers, daily wage workers, street hawkers, etc. Due to financial compulsions, parents force their children to join the labour force and ultimately these children remain out of the formal education system. Sparsha took the challenge of changing the mindset of parents through continuous intervention with these parents and their children. So far Sparsha has impacted around 25000 children from 12000 families in 17 centers across different slum pockets in 3 Municipal wards in Mumbai. Sparsha works with 22 BMC schools to ensure enrollment of drop out children in the formal education system. Our aim in near future is to spread its wings and widen its horizon to provide a helping hand to more and more disadvantaged children. At Sparsha Charitable Trust, we believe education is the most vital asset of an individual. Access to quality education, however, is not evenly distributed. In underprivileged areas, school drop-out rates remain high, girls tend to skip school altogether, and a very high number of students fail to acquire basic secondary education. This occurs due to various reasons but mainly it is due to the lack of awareness in parents and financial restraints due to the ensuing poverty.We work with children, parents, and government schools to eliminate these imbalances. We aim to spread awareness through conducting meetings among the youth, adults, and parents. Our aim is to motivate parents to send their children to school and give them an opportunity to develop themselves to their fullest potential. Our programs emphasize education that develops a child’s social skills and life skills. With this, every child is prepared for their future and can positively embrace the opportunities they are offered in society and life.

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Sarika Vijay Desai

Sparsha Charitable Trust

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

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