India
Educating the future leaders

India is a good example of different aspects of education, particularly in terms of changing the lives of young women. For example, in the Kishori Bahini in Baruipur block in rural West Bengal, Nistha is an organisation which targets young women, aiming to empower them socially, economically and politically. This is done by training girls between 9 and 18 years old in leadership management. Currently, around 700 girls from 9 villages meet twice a week at the Nistha centre for training in village administration, communication skills, community development, health care, and the legal rights of women in society.

Visible impact
The impact of this has been great – for example, 15 year old Gauri’s father gave up alcohol after she locked him in the house for a day. When he was released, she was cheered by her friends, which made him realise that his whims were no longer the determining factors in family life. The programme also addresses the cause of girl children, ensuring that their needs are met, particularly in terms of access to education, health and recreational facilities. Hence the morale and self-worth of women has been boosted, as well as building their skills.

Learning for Earning
Meanwhile, in the dry, arid areas of Kutch in Gujarat and western Rajasthan, people are more concerned with making a basic living than with learning the alphabet and names for parts of the body. Here the approach has been to make education needs-based. In a training programme called Learning for Earning run by Jiva, women are taught basic economic, business and management concepts which enable them the profitability of their self-made products. The programme emphasises that the trainees return to the villages as trainers, thereby benefiting the whole artisan community.

Empowerment of all
Elsewhere, in Bangalore, a grassroots literacy programme called Akshara (meaning letters) run by thousands of volunteers, is aiming to reach the 100,000 children out of school. For many of the children, particularly girls, their families are unable to pay school fees, so this initiative gives them opportunities they would not normally have. Furthermore, many of the teacher volunteers are themselves women, so there is a further level of social empowerment involved in the project. This shows that education is not simply about literacy and numeracy, but about life-changing skills.