Educate Girls is a
nonprofit organization that promotes and supports
girls' education in the remotest and rural and educationally backward parts of
India. It works in partnership with the Government of India and operates over 20,000 villages of
Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh,
Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar. It engages with a huge base of community volunteers and in the process helps to identify, enroll, retain out-of-school girls and improve foundational skills in literacy and numeracy for all children. Educate Girls creates
community ownership to help communities to prioritize girls' education. The model includes the following elements: Safeena Husain was born and brought up in
New Delhi and holds a B.S. from the
London School of Economics and was always been committed to girls' education in India and abroad and has worked extensively in this area even in the third-world countries of
South America,
Africa and
Asia and had also been elected as one of the Asia 21 Young Leaders by the Asia Society. Team Balika members work with Government schools as well as village communities to spread awareness on girl child education. Team Balika are trained in community mobilization and outreach (door-to-door surveys, enrolment activities, conducting community meetings), learning curriculum (GKP) implementation,
leadership and
motivation. They are mostly between the ages of 18 and 30 and are often among the most educated members of their communities. Each Team Balika is given continuous training and hand-holding by Educate Girls throughout the year to facilitate their efforts.
Increasing girls' enrolment After using existing Government data and door-to-door surveys (conducted by Educate Girls) to identify out-of-school girls in the area, responsibility is then distributed between the village leaders, elders, school administration, Team Balika and Educate Girls' staff to bring girls back to school. This often involves going door-to-door to convince parents to send their girls to school and rallying the community through Gram Shiksha Sabha's and Mohalla Meetings.
Improving learning outcomes Educate Girls trains its Team Balika (community volunteers) to implement a remedial learning curriculum, with the use of specially designed kits, called Gyan ka Pitara (GKP). The learning tools focus on building micro-competencies in
English,
Hindi and Math for children in Grades 3, 4 and 5. The GKP accounts for the needs of marginalised children and uses interactive tools, activities and games, and worksheets for individual children in the classroom, ensuring that no child is left behind. Tests are conducted before and after curriculum implementation to assess learning levels.
Creation of girl leaders Educate Girls facilitates the election of
Bal Sabhas (Girls' Councils) in every upper primary school. This 13-member council gives girls a leadership position within the school and training in
life skills to boost communication, leadership and problem solving skills. ==History==