India is home to the largest number of NGOs in the world. A general atmosphere of distrust towards these organizations exists within the community due to increased cases of unaccountability, lack of real impact and inefficient use of resources. Sometimes, less is more. There are a number of small organizations that exist to make lives better for Indian girls and their work continues to have tremendous impact in the realm of education and capacity building.
Milaan, Uttar Pradesh
Milaan promotes “access to quality education in rural spaces.” Since 2007, Milaan has worked directly with more than 10,000 children and young adults, and had ensured that the girls in these communities have had a real chance at improving their lives through education and life-skills training.
Milaan’s Swarachna Learning and Resource Center is located in rural Uttar Pradesh and was created out of collaboration between the local community and Milaan. With the help of the community that donated an acre of land, the first and only Senior Secondary School was built in 2007. So far, the school has provided education to girls living in over 20 villages from Kindergarten until grade 12.
Milaan also initiated the Young Girl Icon Awards in 2015, a scholarship campaign that empower girls through training and skill building to take their community-building exercise to another level of impact.
Sambhali Trust, Rajasthan
Sambhali Trust empowers young Dalit girls by giving them access to formal education and vocational training that leads to earning livelihood and engaging them in self-help groups that serve as a strong support system.
In 2012, the organization established The Sambhali Sheerni Education Programme to allow poorer girls, who lack basic education in their own communities to go to school on a regular basis. These girls live in a housing community provided by the organization and come from the villages of Setrawa, Shergarh, Solankiyatala and Balesar. With educational skills and an enabling living environment, these girls aged between 6-15 years of age are able to attend a private secondary school and live with the now possible hope of a brighter future.
AWAAZ-E-NISWANN, Mumbai
Muslim girls in Indian suffer a complex and an intensely intricate discrimination. Victims of both religious and political ideologies, girls living in poor communities are often victims of forced marriages and lack basic access to education and livelihood opportunities. Awaaz-E-Niswaan works with girls in Muslim communities in the ghettos and low-income families in and around Mumbai. The organization helps these young girls for a formal education, scholarship awards for higher education, life-skills training and community-building exercises to enable self-reliance and confidence. In this initiative, AEN has opened up a library center in Mumbra currently inhabited by over 800,000 Muslims. The organization has also collaboration with an advocacy group to provide a 12-month photography workshop to 16 women and girls who had experienced domestic violence.
NISHTHA, West Bengal
Nishtha has helped over 250 villages in rural West Bengal with programmes that provide education, access to health care and livelihood opportunities. Amongst the three schools, one is dedicated to the girls with a past in forced child prostitution in the red light district of Kolkatta. Many of the girls who currently attend these three schools have not had any formal education and now engage in creative learning, basic training in life-skills and participate in community activism to promote gender equality and economic independence.
More than 16,500 women and girls take part in Nishtha’s age-specific community development groups that tackle issues of child marriage, child trafficking, child labor, domestic violence and gender inequality in employment opportunities. These women lead rallies and awareness-building campaigns within their community and encourage more than 5000 people to participate and support.
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