I-Saksham Education and Learning Foundation builds local young women from marginalized communities in Bihar as edu-leaders through a two-year long fellowship program. The edu-leader grows as a role model for other young women and children in the community and on an average impacts 50 people. We leverage education as a medium of change to help edu-leaders bring positive shifts in their society and help children attain foundational literacy and numeracy skills.
i-Saksham has built a cadre of 200 edu-leaders who are reaching out to 7500 children in 4 extremism affected districts of Bihar. These key components of the program include:
Self leadership: An edu-leader is trained on identity, agency etc. to build self-efficacy and confidence which helps her emerge as a strong individual. She is provided with regular coaching and mentoring support through a buddy system.
Education leadership: The edu-leader is placed in an under-resourced government school of her village where she bridges the learning gap among children by improving their foundational learning skills. She is trained on innovative pedagogical approaches, classroom management, assessments,etc.
Community leadership: The edu-leader builds ties in the community to enhance parents participation towards the learning of children. She organizes parents-teachers meetings and various learning fairs to lead education change in the community and emerge as an active citizen.
i-Saksham targets to reach 1,000 edu-leaders by 2025. The cost of supporting a unit of 51 people (including the edu-leader, the children she works with and peers she influences) over the 2 year fellowship programme is USD 4286. The funds thus raised would be spent towards edu-leaders' capacity building and field support; mobile phones and other learning accessories for edu-leaders; stationary, mini-library and other support to the children; community level action projects; corpus funds for further study scholarship support to the edu-leader, etc.
