by lwang | Nov 4, 2012 | Community Development, Education, Pratham
2010 Kravis Prize winner Pratham, one of India’s largest non-governmental organizations committed to educating underprivileged children, has a leadership team dedicated to representing the educational interests of the country as a whole. Pratham News shared a column by Pratham program director, Dr. Rukmini Banerji, on what she calls the myths of education in India. Banerji breaks down five basic assumptions underlying the country’s education department, supporting her argument with data from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a nationwide survey performed by citizens to gauge the success of school systems throughout the country. Originally published in the public policy and economics website, Ideas for India, Banerji’s analysis reveals the reality of the education department’s following assumptions: 1. High enrollment means children are in school; 2. Children are in school from age six onwards. India’s RTE Law “guarantees” education from the age of six to the age of fourteen; 3. Children in a given grade or class are homogenous (similar in age, ability etc.); 4. Textbooks are at appropriate age/grade level; and 5. Every year the country’s capability to deliver education is improving. Banerji’s comprehensive snapshot evidences how these assumptions misrepresent India’s educational climate and, ultimately cheat, underprivileged children of the education they deserve. She closes by challenging education department officials to “stick to reality”: “If we don’t look hard at our own reality, we will be constructing schools and curriculum for children who do not exist. If we don’t look hard at our own reality, we will be creating laws for situations that are far from real. If don’t look at our own reality, we will not be...
by lwang | Oct 29, 2012 | Community Development, Education, Pratham
2010 Kravis Prize winner Pratham, one of India’s largest NGOs committed to educating underprivileged children, is constantly innovating in order to improve education in India. In a recent posting on the Friends of Pratham blog, Namrta Kaushal addresses the question, “How well is every child learning?” and explores the tools Pratham has developed to assess children’s educational attainment. Pratham recognizes the need for educational assessments to promote greater understanding of academic performance and achievement. The program asserts that finding out, on an ongoing basis, what a child knows and can do, helps parents and teachers decide how to pose new challenges and provide children strategic guidance. Namrta Kaushal writes: “There is an increasing pressure on the average primary school teacher, especially with large, overcrowded classes of pupils with varying abilities and languages. Understandably it can be difficult for the teacher to flag a child’s difficulties.” With the goal of assessing the learning level of children, Pratham Delhi Education Initiative conducted about 20 “Assessment Melas” (Sanskrit for “gatherings”) across Delhi this October. Please click here to read the full blog post and learn more about Pratham’s...
by lwang | Oct 5, 2012 | Community Development, Education, Pratham
Since its inception in 1994, 2010 Kravis Prize winner Pratham, the largest non-governmental organization working to arm India with quality education, has opened doors for millions of underprivileged children. Their immeasurable impact has been met with overwhelming support across the country, with $1.5 million in donations last year. The San Francisco Bay Area Gala kicked off Pratham’s event trail last month raising over $400,000. Pratham first orchestrated a system that provided pre-school education to children in the slums of Mumbai, but the organization’s scope has evolved remarkably as Madhav Chavan, president and CEO of Pratham shares: “Now, we not only focus on primary school education in the slums, but also provide vocational and aid-based training, so that students can apply their education in the real world.” The evening included a teleconference that allowed children from Pratham Pune to showcase their accomplishments and share their aspirations with the audience. Swarna Khedekar, a teacher at Pratham, expressed her pride in the program and her profound gratitude for their supporters: “Our library and English education programs have grown in popularity. We have reached over 127,000 children this year through our library program…until now, we had only heard of our donors in the USA. It’s a great opportunity to be able to meet them and thank them in person.” To learn more about the inspiring work of Pratham, visit our page. “PRATHAM SF Bay Area Gala Raises 400K for Nonprofit” [India West, September 27,...
by lwang | Sep 6, 2012 | Community Development, Education, Female Empowerment, Health, m2m
Although Kravis Prize winners are tackling different social problems in today’s world, they all share the same mission: Make an impact. For example, mothers2mothers harnesses the power of individuals – their mentor mothers – to empower, educate and foster a community that provides HIV-positive women with the support they need. The Huffington Post published the story of Patience Hlengiwe Kweyama, an HIV-positive mother of five and an m2m mentor mother, who discussed her own experiences: “I saw an ad for a Mentor Mother position for mothers2mothers, an NGO that helps prevent mother-to-child transmission through peer mentoring and education, and I decided to apply as I felt that providing support and education to other women going through similar experiences to me was something I could do. I wanted to help these women so that they could understand what medication is available and how they can have healthy babies. Most importantly, I didn’t want them to live with the same fear I did for almost ten years. Through the training I received, I am now able to live my life positively, living the mothers2mothers vision of saving babies and their mothers.” In addition, Kweyama emphasized the many roles that m2m plays in supporting HIV-positive mothers and pregnant women: “Mentor Mothers motivate pregnant women with HIV to adhere to their medicines. We provide a network of support for all mothers in the community. Challenges such as stigma and health worker shortages are addressed as well. Mentor Mothers are powerful agents against the stigma of HIV that causes women to live in fear and prevents them from seeking care. Mentor Mothers work alongside...
by lwang | Aug 24, 2012 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Roy Prosterman
In the mid 1960s, inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman, armed with his legal knowledge and expertise, set out to change the world. This led to the establishment of Landesa in 1981, which tackles one of the chief structural causes of global poverty, rural landlessness, by educating people around the world about land rights. In the past 25 years, Landesa has expanded and truly has a global impact. In fact, Dawn recently published an article by Prosterman and Landesa senior attorney Darryl Vhugen, who discussed the importance of upholding land rights in Pakistan: An estimated 4.7 million rural families, comprising around 33 million people, are completely landless across rural Pakistan. Their lack of land rights leaves them with no pathway to escape their deep poverty – no land on which to labour for their own reward, and no opportunity to exercise any entrepreneurial spirit. The authors introduced the idea of house-and-garden plots, which would give the recipient families a “land base” that would allow them to “literally grow themselves out of abject poverty.” “[House-and-garden plots] provide enough space for a family to build a very small house and engage in vegetable gardening, tree cultivation, small-scale raising of livestock, home-based businesses and other income-generating activities. They can make a very large difference in the livelihoods and status of the poor — including the enhancement of the role and status of women, whose names should be included on the title wherever possible — while supplementing and diversifying existing livelihood strategies. … They increase family income, enhance family nutrition, provide physical security, help assure access to a range of government benefits, serve...
by lwang | Aug 10, 2012 | AIL, Community Development, Education, Female Empowerment, Health, Sakena Yacoobi
In June, Voice America’s Audrey Kitagawa interviewed Sakena Yacoobi for her radio segment on love, spirituality and forgiveness. Yacoobi discussed her work at the Afghan Institute of Learning and her reasons behind focusing on providing education and health care services to people in Afghanistan: “Ninety-five percent of people of Afghanistan live in poverty so health education is very, very important. [If] a mother is healthy, she will make sure that her child is healthy. And if her child is healthy, you know and I know that a child that is healthy can learn better. … I believe in education and I think that education is the key issue for really reaching out to people.” She also shared AIL’s goal and the impact that the organization is attempting to achieve: “The issue is that we want to transform life. We want to change the status of the life of the people … We are trying to make people educated, we try to help people to be healthy and we try to make people to be economically sustainable that they have a better life.” Given the progress AIL’s made, it’s safe to say they’re not only improving people’s lives in Afghanistan, but also imparting hope on those who have suffered in the past! Listen to the full radio interview...
