Uncommon Education For Common Good
Country: India
Organization: KATHA
2) Sector of activity: Education
3) Description of your products or services: Quality education for under-privileged children living in urban slum clusters. Working with the underprivileged, families living at subsistence levels in an overpopulated slum, Katha has brought out priceless talent through creative expression, dedication, and determination Here we are looking at sustainable individuals who inturn will help in the sustaining of the project. Training in entrepreneurial and earning skills is an integral part of Katha’s programme. Poverty alleviation and stemming child labour through education, community activism. The main components of this program are: Non-formal education, which brings the students at par with senior school graduates over the years, through extensive use of story, and other art forms. Entrepreneurship development. IT training and extensive use of IT as a medium for teaching and learning Vocational Training, including the arts The Katha Student Support Centre Placement Katha was one of the first organizations in the country to talk of first generation schoolgoers as children with special needs, hence requiring quality, colourful reading materials so as to attract them to the joy of reading and through that to lifelong learning. Here relevant education curriculum, appropriate teaching/learning materials and TAMASHA! A Katha publication and India’s first and only story health and activities magazine for children. The innovative LIFE Philosophy and the C9 gave the philosophical grounding and foundation
4) Description of the operational model: Katha’s educational programmes have each time brought innovations. Here the students pay fees for the education they receive at Katha. However, the fee structure has been designed in such a manner that the children earn their fees back each month by performing well in class as fees are linked to their performance in the previous month. The children during their term at Katha automatically become a part of the Katha School of Entrepreneurship (KSE) which is an integeral part of Kathashala School. Here we work with older children, providing business and entrepreneurial skills through research, field study and projects that trains students in the skills of setting up and managing a micro enterprise of their own. This has helped some of our children launch their own enterprises, ranging from newspaper dealership to catering, taking electricity contracts to working in various factories and export houses, earning Rs. 1500 – Rs. 2000 a month. Here we are looking at sustainable individuals who inturn will help in the sustaining of the family, which will help in the sustenance of the project.
5) Description of the financial model: From its inception, Katha has instilled in the community the idea of paying for services. Here the students pay enrolment fee initially $2.20 for getting enrolled in the Kathashala. However, the fee structure has been designed in such a manner that the children earn their fees back each month by performing well in class as fees are linked to their performance in the previous month. Here certain criteria are fixed on the basis of which the performance of the child is measured or rather these criteria ensure a holistic development of the child.The criteria include- Regular attendance, Cooperation with teachers,Performance in class,Parents as partners,Peer learning, being girl child. This makes education free for girls if they fulfill all the criteria and 80% free for other children. Here in the satellite schools the community has given land for the schools to be run . They also gave “shramdaan”(labour) for the construction of a temporary structure for the school. Here the students pay fees which helps in sustaining the teachers. Katha only provides the technical support like teaching/learning material,training, and Katha books.
Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget: 10%
6) Key operational partnership: Katha is the first organization to bring the principles of storytelling into the classroom through an educational curriculum that brings joy and takes boredom away from learning and makes traditional and nontraditional subjects meaningful and interesting for our children.Katha's appropriate teaching/learning materials which is designed taking the needs of the child from nonliterate families, and centered on the community and its issues/challenges. This has been applied across our schools and the nonprofits who have taken our workshops. TAMASHA! a Katha publication India’s first and only story health and activities magazine for children. The magazine as a teaching/learning material and a teachers "magazine" that showed them innovative ways to take the Tamasha! stories into their classrooms. It reached out to 5 MILLION children during 1989-95. Even today, it reaches out to more than 6000 children, bringing them BIG ideas for the transformation of family and society. NGOs and Government schools are the other partners. They have tried to inculcate through training, workshops and T/L material, Katha's innovations in education. Community as partners in our development projects.
7) Current outreach:
We are at the Scaling Up stage. We started the education programme with 5 children in one community. Today we are touching the lives of 6000 children spread across 57 communities in Delhi and Arunachal Pradesh. The percentage of girls in the school has gone up from 15% to nearly 50%. The retention rate which was less than 30 % is now over 90%. We got one computer in the school in 1995, and now have over 80 computers and a vibrant IT education and community development programme. This has won us 5 international awards including the Stockholm Challenge and the NASDAQ Education award. TAMASHA! a Katha publication has reached out to 5 MILLION children during 1989-95. Even today, it reaches out to more than 6000 children, bringing them BIG ideas for the transformation of family and their society.
How many clients have benefited from your product/service in total? Over the last year? Today we are touching the lives of 6000 children spread across 57 communities in Delhi and Arunachal Pradesh. Today’s education turns out the quality-conscious technocrat, business manager or doctor, but often does not develop the person as a responsive and responsible citizen. At Katha, our activities urge children to move away from a debilitating mass culture to a more critical culture of holistic education. Regular workshops and field trips foster “Learning by doing, not just learning to do”. And through wholesome exposure nurture questioning, analytical and thinking personalities who are free to make choices, and more importantly, be responsible for those choices. Katha has been working in urban slums and has helped thousands of children being weaned away from work and being mainstreamed enabling them to complete their education and preparing for sustainable livelihoods.
What percentage of your clients is below the poverty line ($2 per day)? 99% We work with children living in urban slums as well as
street children most of who are below povertyline.
In India today a vast majority of people lives under
poverty conditions and is either illiterate or first-
generation literate. The continuous industrialization and
urbanization processes have caused these people to move
away from their roots, thus denying them both access to the
processes of education available within their own cultures
and economies as well as benefits of the modern education
system. Hence Katha, whose ultimate aim is to restore the
story to the centre of the education process, has initiated
a process of capacity building for a community situated at
Govindpuri, Delhi. The work involves a program of
education for the children, their parents and the entire
community with focus on the women and youth. This program
has also been now extended to the street children.
What is the order of magnitude of the potential demand for your products or services? Which
other low-income groups, countries or regions could benefit from it? Try to quantify (number
of clients, market size in currency):
Quality Education with a holistic perspective will always be short in the wake of growing demand.The innovations brought out by Katha particularly of instilling self- respect and self-confidence among individuals to realize their potentials through skill and knowledge enhancement through literacy, income-generation, family well being and empowerment. This program, while providing modern education facilities to the target population, facilitates retention of their cultural richness with pride.Katha has the capacity to cater to another 6000 children who could be from states like Bihar and Rajasthan and belonging to the below poverty line and disadvantaged section of the population.Our experience with extending the education programme to community schools has shown that with suitable teacher training and access to the resource base of T/L material this could be replicated in other settings.
8) Scale-up strategy:
How many low-income individuals do you plan to benefit in three years from now? How are you planning to scale up or replicate your solution? What are the major constraints to scale up?
Another 6000 children from poor families would be our target population who are most likely to benefit from our programmes in education, economic resurgence and community revitalization. Our inclination will be to to sread slowly so that we achieve the best quality of education which would ensure outlets to the creative imagination of the children. Since we already have the experience of working in Delhi slums and have successfully implemented or rather marketed our services with the community taking over ownership of the programme. Together with this we also have the experience of working with partners in Arunachal Pradesh where we have been able to communicate the basic ideology and method, it would not be very difficult for us to replicate the project. The major constraint would be in finding the right partners to take the program forward as well as the required necessary funds.
Which specific areas - and why - in your field would benefit most from investment by corporations, foundations, and other investors:
We at Katha endeavour to spread the joy of reading, knowing, and living amongst adults and children, the common reader and the neo-literate. Katha has striven to establish a code of excellence in all that it does, to enhance the quality of life in every project it has attempted. Working for the past 15 years in developing an interesting T/L material, methodology and curriculum, which has been tried, tested and mastered to cater to poverty alleviation, stemming child labour and community activism. With little effort these can be replicated in other settings and would help in upscaling our activities. Hence investment in the specified areas will help in upscaling the project – Teaching/learning materials. Entrepreneurial training Vocational training Organising teacher training workshops Publishing of Tamasha magazine and Katha books for children
9) The organization: How does the initiative fit with your overall organization's strategic goals and priorities? How did the initiative start?
Katha is a nonprofit organization, devoted to creative communication and community activism for development. Started in 1988,by its founder Geeta Dharmarajan, Katha was formally registered as a society on September 8, 1989 Katha is India's only nonprofit working in the literacy to literature continuum. In education and community revitalization.Katha’s main objectives: • To enhance the joys of reading and uncommon creativities for a common good. Link diversities and forge identities through literatures. • Stimulate an interest in lifelong learning that will help the child grow into a confident, self-reliant, responsible and responsive adult. • Help break down gender, cultural and social stereotypes.Geeta Dharmarajan, our founder and ED has brought a new perspective that have consistently shaped our existence as a profit-for-all organization bringing value to communities across India.
-
10) On the mosaic diagram, which of these factors is the primary focus of your work?
- Factor: Poor understanding of the human and social capitals of low income communities
- Principle: Leverage the power of communities as both consumers and producers
Contact Information:
Name: Girija Rajagopalan
Organization: KATHA
Mailing address: KATHA SARVODAYA, A-3 SARVODAYA ENCLAVE, SRI AUROBINDO MARG, NEW DELHI 110017
Country: India
Email: katha@katha.org
Tel: 26524350,26524511
Fax: 26514373
Website: www.katha.org
Organization's legal status: S-20336, SOCIETY REGISTRATION ACT X X I OF 1860
Number of Employees: 170
|
Return to Home Page