Project Sankalp
Problem Statement
According to a recent study, India alone accounts for 50% of world's gendered digital divide. Remote learning during the pandemic has been far from universal and primary and secondary school students who are defined as coming from “economically disadvantaged background” suffer from the digital divide.
Target Group:
We identify students in slums of National Capital Region (our hub falls under it), currently active in Jhundpura, Tigri and Sangam Vihar (one of the largest agglomeration of unauthorised colonies) and academically adopt them for a period of 5 years. 66.7% of our students are girls hereby bridging the gendered digital divide. All students come from low income communities i.e., annual household income is less than Rs. 100,000 or $1230 per year. The students are in return empowering their families especially younger siblings and mothers (by educating them about their rights, basic literacy through interactive learning etc.)
Proposed Solution:
We strive to provide equal learning opportunity for every child through digital empowerment.
Project Sankalp works to achieve digital equality along the lines of income, race, gender and geography and ensure that the most disadvantaged and disconnected communities become the most vital and innovative in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
We define our solution through 3 strategies, also called our pillars:
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Provide Digital Access: Raise funds and partner with local and global organisations to provide digital devices and tools to access quality education. -
Address Gender Gaps in Education and Workforce: Our implementation plan is inclusive and aims to bridge gendered digital divide, hereby bridging the gender gaps in workforce. -
Creating Agents of Change: Shapers to create personalised learning plans for each student that also includes Socio-emotional learning and value-based learning to ensure our students become responsible citizens who are also committed to core values of GSC i.e., improving the state of the world.
Hub Activities:
1. Raising funds for devices/collecting old devices: We run various drives for the same. So far 25+ gadgets/devices including laptops, headphones, wi-fi routers and mobile phones have been distributed.
2. Partnership with a leading Ed-tech organisation, Vedantu (Help India Learn initiative) - We got a $100,000 worth scholarship grant for students for academic learning, tools and devices from Vedantu witha validity of 5 years. We will be allowed to re-negotiate and increase the grant amount as well as get more students in new academic cycle (April-March, 2023). The teaching material is aligned to Skills of Future and National Education Policy of India. Students learn in an interactive platform called W.A.V.E 2.0 which is gamified and engaging in nature. Students also get exposure to various technological advancements in the field of Education.
P.S- Our founding Curator Diksha is also responsible for Help India Learn initiative in her tenure at Vedantu.
3. ALL Shapers of the hub contribute to learning of our stidents - Our idea is to prepare our students for the 'Future of Work' and '4IR' hence impart knowledge that's relevant beyond their regular academic and co-curricular subjects at Vedantu. We also realised that they need for more personalised support. Hence, each Shaper of our hub is responsible for one subject of their expertise that aligns to 'Skills of Future' and contribute 5-6 hours a month supporting students. This way 30 hours of personalised learning support is given by our hub members per month and so far we have contributed 320+ hours of support teaching subjects like Design, Coding, Communicative English, Entrepreneurship and much more.
Collaborators:
Bringing in more support: Besides Vedantu, we partnered with Just for Arts for STEAM Learning and Arts workshops, iDreamCareer.com for Career Counseling, Movers Program (By UNDP) for SDGs' awareness, YLAC for Counter Speech fellowship, Teach for India for student leadership and amplification of impact.
So far, we have contributed to 900+ hours of learning per student in less than 3 years with the help of various partners inclusive of Vedantu.
Number of direct beneficiaries currently ~ 20
Number of indirect beneficiaries currently ~ 100+ (community, family members etc.)
Amount of funds utilised ~ $50,000
Short term goal:
We will have more students join us in the next academic year, so expecting a total of 50 students by April 2023. We will also be able to:
1. Track attendance/retention - We have 100% retention. So far only 1 student dropped out for 6 months and we got her back with a lot of extended efforts our hub provided. Attendance is tracked for all sessions.
2. Track Student Success: 50% of students in top 5%ile of their class - we have seen a significant improvement in academic growth. We have qualitative & quantitative data in form of testimonials/result cards to support that. We have seen significant improvement in literacy levels. Students also worked on an English Drama play.
3. Create agents of change: students will soon start to intern with various organisations inclusive of GSC Noida hub and we are hopeful some of them will also become Shapers. Students are already taking advocacy efforts on topics like Digital-wellbeing, Body positivity, Menstruation etc.
4. Students will get extended support by Shapers when they apply to any programme Some notable achievments:
- One of our students received 1st prize worth Rs.50,000 by Canva for creating exceptional creative in their 'Back to school campaign. (Varsha Singh, 9-12 Category)
- 4 of our students made it to the Counter speech fellowship by YLAC. 9 students applied.
- Organised a Drama show with the help of a Shaper - we are planning a public showcase soon
- Participated in CFR Show
Long term goal: We strive to provide equal learning opportunity for every child through digital empowerment. Our goal is to impact 1000+ students and families by 2025
Available metrics:
- Academic growth: measured with our partner's support
- Retention/Attendance: measured for every session (Vedantu's measurement system login that provides us all the data), we also mesure it in every other session beyond that taken by Vedantu.
- Holistic growth: achievements, value oriented mindset, advocacy efforts by students (all this data is gathered by our hub members for each student). for scale, we ae looking at designing our own scale for students. Qualitative feedback is provided by Shapers.
Please visit us on our Instagram channel and check out our reports to get more insights. Our website is displayed below.
Contact: Diksha Ahi, +917895049979 for any cross-hub collaboration. You can also write to us at globalshapersnoida@gmail.com.