Adishakti Mahila Sanstha NGO

Children in rural areas are only guaranteed free education till 8th grade, after which many of them drop out. One of the primary reasons is non-affordability of the study materials for further education. Many of them are also unaware of the diverse opportunities available to them after school. For our CAS project, we partnered with Adishakti Mahila Bahuddeshiya Sanstha, an NGO working in the rural districts of Wasim and Akola in Maharashtra, to address both these issues with the help of two comprehensive career counselling brochures, detailed online courses and a fundraiser.

As part of our career counselling brochures, we thoroughly researched and outlined the numerous further education and career possibilities available to Indian students after the 10th and 12th grades. In order to ensure easy readability and access to these booklets, we created them virtually using simple vocabulary and visual representations, organising them according to subjects. Additionally, we dedicated a section of the brochures for government and privately-funded scholarship opportunities, addressing the financial limitations faced by students. Guided by the NGO head Mr. Nirmal Thakur, we then shared these with students and teachers from Janta Vidyalaya and Narsing Vidyalaya amongst 5 other schools, hoping to limit inequality of opportunity and enable them to fulfill their true academic potential.

The online course creation team created supplementary Science material for rural students in 8th and 9th grade. This entailed creating videos that discussed experiments or simulations in an easily digestible manner, which helps students understand the material better. We created 5 videos about topics in Chemistry, Biology and Physics, and with the help of the NGO we shared these videos with the students.

Finally, the fundraising team organised a fundraiser to support Adishakti’s Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Book Bank scheme, which provides 9th and 10th standard textbooks to students in rural schools, enabling them to access education. The fundraiser was created and hosted on Ketto, and was spread mainly through social media, especially WhatsApp and Instagram. With the help of numerous donors, we were able to raise over Rs. 60000, which will pay for 125 more book sets for the 10th standard, allowing almost 400 students to continue their education and improve their future.