Sakhiyon Ki Badi Programme

Sakhiyon Ki Badi Programme – An Initiative Supported by IIFL Foundation

Purpose

The basic purpose of this program is to provide education to the illiterate and out of school girls across Rajasthan. While the primary objective of the program is to mainstream the girls, there would be many villages and areas where there is no nearby school, the purpose of the program in such cases would be certify the girls in Rajasthan Board by providing the necessary support.

Context
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world – Nelson Mandela.
India is home to millions of illiterate and out of school girls – as per 2011 census over 81.5 lakh children are out of school – around 61 lakh of these have never been to school. As per another estimate around 12% of these are in Rajasthan alone. (around 9,78,000). Needless to say, majority of these are girls who lag behind due to various reasons such as access to the nearest school to cultural reasons like child marriage and girl sharing the responsibility of home care with the mother etc. Rajasthan is the only state in India where school dropout rate is increasing with each year. The proportion of Out of school girls between the age of 11 yrs and 13 years rose from 8.9% in 2011 to 11.2% in 2012 to 12.1% in 2013.
And there are several other facts about education in Rajasthan that causes a reason for concern. Some of these are:
• With the literacy rate of 67%, Rajasthan lags behind Cameroon, Egypt and Ghana.
• Female Literacy Rate (urban – 52.66% & rural – 45.8%) is worst that the average for Arab world and fragile conflict affected countries.

Cause for Worry
Rajasthan is India’s seventh most populated state (68.5 million) with 24% of its population between ages 6 and 14 years and if many these are out of school it is definitely a cause for worry. Unless this problem is tackled on a war footing there could be serious repercussions and it will be a matter of time before the demographic dividend becomes a demographic disaster.

Objectives
1) To provide access to education to young girls
2) To ensure that all girls are learning well and achieving their full potential.
3) To change the narrative around girl child education by closely working with the community.

Strategies
1. Identify villages/ hamlets with out of school/ illiterate girls.
2. Start community schools by mobilizing such girls
3. Provide best in class education through robust teachers training program.
4. Provide individual support to each girl to excel and achieve her full potential.
5. Modify barriers and obstacles to girl child education

Launch of Rathshala