How IIFL Foundation’s Sakhiyon Ki Baadi is eliminating illiteracy among girls in Rajasthan

At the age of 9, Ramila Bhil from the Morchucha village in Udaipur, Rajasthan, dropped out of school to take care of her family, cattle, and the household chores early on.

While her family is primarily engaged in seasonal farming, during the non-farming season, he migrates to the city for work.

Despite these challenges, in 2017, Ramila managed to join the ‘Sakhiyon ki Baadi’ (SKB) programme by the IIFL Foundation and has been doing well in her studies. She has also developed an affinity to get proper school education.

Her Daksha (teacher) helped her to secure admission at the government school in the neighbouring village, where she is a regular student in Class 6.

Like Ramila, thousands of girls have managed to get proper education through the SKB programme — which aims to eradicate girl child illiteracy in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan has the lowest female literacy rate at 57.12 percent, owing to poverty, illiterate parents, inaccessibility to a school, and taking care of family and cattle.

“Being from Rajasthan, I always wanted to do something about the situation, and thus we launched SKB as a platform to help girls attain literacy and access to a wider world of opportunities,” says Madhu Jain, Director, IIFL Foundation – Sakhiyon Ki Baadi.

The phrase ‘Sakhiyon Ki Baadi’ literally translates to a gathering place for female friends in the local dialect of Mewari.

Eradicating female literacy

Founded in 2016, SKB is active in about 12 districts of Rajasthan, including Udaipur, Rajsamand, Pratapgarh, Banswara, Dungarpur, Sirohi, Bali, Pali, Jalore, Bhilwara, Jodhpur, and Ajmer. 

“We’ve targeted the areas dominated by the indigenous scheduled tribes like Bhil, Meena, Garasiya, Kalbeliya, and Gameti as literacy among girls in these communities is very low or non-existent,” Madhu shares.

SKB engages girls from ages four to 14 through its learning centres, which are operational for four hours a day, six days a week. The learning happens in an open environment, such as a community hall, a veranda, or a room that is willingly offered by the community for the cause. 

In fact, SKB — probably being the only source of learning (informal) in these remote locations — also welcomes boys and grown-ups to learn, read, and write.  

SKB referred to the syllabus from the textbooks prepared by the State Institute for Educational Research and Training (SIERT), Rajasthan, and simplified the topics. It even translated them to the local language for better understanding. 

SKB covers subjects, including Hindi, English, Mathematics, Moral Science, Environmental Studies, and General Knowledge. Besides, it also holds classes on painting, singing, dancing, and dramatics. 

“One of the major objectives of this initiative is to make these girls ‘curious learners’ to question things and build their understanding, which will develop a civic sense, empower their role in the society, and help attain functional literacy,” says Madhu.

In fact, SKB also enrols the students at the nearest government school when they are ready.

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Training the Dakshas

SKB has a dedicated resource team of 20 members who have expertise in the domain of education and working with children.

The training team prepares a monthly task sheet for the teachers (Daksha) to follow, where the topics are clearly outlined, along with the supporting teaching material and their weekly breakup.

These Dakshas are in the age group of 19 to 45 years and have a maximum educational qualification till Class 10.

These teaching and learning materials (PDFs, videos, and online links) are shared over WhatsApp, and the teacher’s training is conducted online over Google Meet. 

SKB’s operations are supported by a team of 118 members, including field-level support (district managers, block heads, and cluster heads), trainers, accountants, external mentors, and programme managers, who participate in the pedagogy training. 

They also support the teachers while teaching and help them to understand the concepts, which allows for supervision and course correction. 

With the initiative solely focusing on elevating female literacy levels, SKB appointed female teachers as Dakshas as they understand the problems of these girls growing up in such communities in a better manner. 

“However, finding female candidates to take this role was not at all easy, given the patriarchal nature of the society. In fact, finding a literate female was a bleak possibility. It was just like looking for water in a desert,” says Madhu. 

She adds, “We overcame the challenge by paying less attention to the qualification and more to the passion and enthusiasm for learning and taking the lead.”

Their role has multiple facets — teaching girls, conducting home visits, building and maintaining a healthy relationship with the community, and encouraging parents to promote education among girl children, among several others.

They also have to maintain a record of the work and progress and share it with the support/training team. 

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Impact

IIFL Foundation has a total of 1,164 Sakhiyon Ki Baadi centres in 12 districts of Rajasthan, where about 1,164 Dakshas teach to 35,964 girls.

The intervention has reached out to 1,164 Gram Panchayats and benefitted over 29,000 families. 

“Since its inception, we’ve invested over Rs 35 crore to eradicate girl child illiteracy in Rajasthan. We spend on the procurement of resource material (stationery goods), toys, conducting residential training of team members, undertaking field visits, and payment of salaries to the staff members,” explains Madhu.

Going virtual amidst COVID-19

“Once the pandemic struck, we feared if the communication with Dakshas is lost and if they do not teach at the centre, the girls will slowly forget what they have learnt. So, we started building virtual classrooms for them,” says Madhu.

The challenges were monumental, owing to low digital literacy in the region, no access to an Android phone, internet connection, and technical knowledge to participate in online meetings (training). 

The training team and field support team coordinated over phone calls, and guided parents to install applications on their devices (Zoom and Google Meet).

Many of the students’ families did not possess an Android phone, and some borrowed it from community members. The online sessions eventually took off and the participation increased with time, connecting over 485 SKB centres across the 12 districts. 

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The road ahead

In the first five years, SKB focused largely on creating a model that can prove effective in the given demography of Rajasthan. This period also allowed for exploration and course correction.

Now, as the model has evolved to be robust, fruitful, and sustainable, it will replicate the same across the state. 

Madhu says, “In the next five years, we want to scale up our operations in 10 more districts, gaining an overall engagement with over five lakh girls. This shall be attained by 2025, bringing an overall reach in 24 districts by collaborating with government agencies and NGOs.”

“The ultimate objective is to attain 100 percent female literacy in Rajasthan by 2030, having an overall reach with over 10 lakh girls, eventually contributing and supporting the government’s mission to achieve SDG 4 —Quality Education for all,” she signs off.