Allen Career Institute
English Version
Nurturing Through Education
March/April 2017
Project Nanhi Kali is helping girls across 10 states in India get the quality education.
Education of women is acknowledged as an effective mechanism to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. In India, where approximately 64 percent of girls drop out of school before they complete the secondary level, the education of millions of girls is considered a daunting task. So, in 1996, Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., began Project Nanhi Kali at the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, with the aim of providing primary education to underprivileged girls in India. He believes that educated women contribute to the economy and help in rooting out regressive social practices like the dowry system and child marriage.
By 2004, 3,500 girls were educated under the project, in partnership with 20 small nongovernmental organizations in Mumbai and New Delhi. Sheetal Mehta, executive director of the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, decided to build on that success. In 2005, she contacted the Hyderabad-based Naandi Foundation to discuss joining forces to provide daily educational support to underprivileged girls. Mehta says Manoj Kumar, chief executive officer of the foundation, envisioned no limits in scaling the project, “to reach 100,000 immediately, and hopefully, empower one million girls in the future with academic and material support.” Since 2005, Project Nanhi Kali is jointly managed by the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust and Naandi Foundation.
One decade later, the project received the 2015 Times of India Social Impact Award for supporting the education of a quarter million underprivileged girls in 10 states in India. Currently, the project supports over 120,000 girls in urban, remote rural and tribal parts of India. Project Nanhi Kali is funded by 8,000 individual donors and 400 global corporate supporters, including Google Inc., Johnson & Johnson Ltd., Teradata, AT&T Inc., Nestlé, Mahindra Group, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., Titan Company Limited and Tata AIG General Insurance Company Ltd.
Changing community mindsets
Kumar defines the project’s inclusive process of enrolling every girl in a village or hamlet as “not just putting a girl in school and educating her. It is 6 to 12 months of fighting to legitimize girls attending school and to change the community mindset that a girl has no other purpose than fetching water or to be married off.”
Often, the reason for a girl’s absence is she is going to get married. Early counseling with her parents and village elders help in preventing such cases. With the project’s persistent focus on ensuring girls learn, daily attendance at the Nanhi Kali academic support classes is mandatory, and tracking their attendance is a priority. Ninety percent of the girls who join the project complete class 10. “When illiterate parents realize that their girls are learning, they develop dreams and aspirations for their daughters to become engineers, scientists or doctors,” says Mehta.
Parents to 120,000 girls
In 2015-16, a third party evaluation team spent six months visiting 41 Academic Support Centres of Project Nanhi Kali across seven locations and declared it “unique among NGOs and nonprofits for providing daily intervention of one to two hours to every girl they serve.”
At these centers, classes are conducted before or after school hours. Girls are taught concepts in mathematics, science and language to bridge the gaps in learning levels, which enable them to achieve grade-specific competency levels. Carefully selected from within the community, and trained in Project Nanhi Kali’s pedagogy of cooperative and reflective learning, the mentors at these centers are the local resource and friends to each of their 30 to 40 students.
The mission to educate underprivileged girls involves taking on a parental role by providing “dignity kits with a school bag, uniform, shoes, socks, stationery and even undergarments and personal hygiene materials to every Nanhi Kali,” says Mehta.
One million girls’ education goal
With no endowment and a “shoestring budget,” Kumar says the project, “can’t afford billboards. [We] depend upon our loyal donors for support. We recently established a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the U.S., the Mahindra Foundation, to generate awareness and raise funds toward the cause of female literacy.” Donors receive a photograph, profile and three progress reports yearly for the child they sponsor.
The annual sponsorship costs $50 (Rs. 3,000 approximately) for primary and $72 (Rs. 5,000 approximately) for secondary education. Ninety percent of the cost is spent directly on the project, while seven percent covers administration and fundraising. The program reserves three percent as a cushion for donors who do not renew. “We will never drop a girl—that is our commitment,” says Mehta.
Project Nanhi Kali continues to “reach for the stars” as they update their goals to support a million girls, roll out digital education through tablet-based learning and establish N-Star Centres for adolescent girls who complete class 10.
Hillary Hoppock is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher, and reporter based in Orinda, California.
A Story of inspiration
Being born as a girl into poverty is sometimes like a double-edged sword. Almost every Nanhi Kali has an endearing and heartwarming story to share. Here’s one.
Hajiya Begum lost her father when she was very young, and her mother deserted her for being a girl. It was left to her grandmother, Karima, who worked as a maid in a Hyderabad suburb, to raise her.
Hajiya was sent to a free government school in Shaikpet. With a meager earning of Rs. 2,000 ($30 approximately) per month, Hajiya’s grandmother did not even have the money to buy her a school bag, so she stitched one together using an old cement sack and cotton rags. In 2006, everything changed. Hajiya, then in class 4, became a Nanhi Kali.
Hajiya continued her education and went on to score 93 percent in her class 10 exams, for which her photograph appeared in local newspapers. In the 2014 Board of Intermediate Exams, the equivalent of class 12, she scored 944 out of 1,000 marks. Her dreams, too, have grown: she now wants to work in a company like Microsoft.
About SPAN Magazine
Since 1960, SPAN has linked India and the United States, offering articles from writers in both countries on education, business, technology, health, culture, social development, arts and achievements in U.S.-India relations.
About Project Nanhi Kali
Project Nanhi Kali was initiated in 1996 by the K. C. Mahindra Education Trust (KCMET) with the aim of providing primary education to underprivileged girl children in India.
Anand Mahindra, the current chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., founded Project Nanhi Kali. with a strong belief that educated women would not only contribute to the economy but also issues of population and social evils like the dowry system and child marriage would reduce as more women are educated.
Studies conducted in developing countries have shown that this is true. Today, even the World Bank has acknowledged that there is no investment more effective for achieving the millennium development goals than educating girls. “According to the World Bank, some of the benefits associated with girls’ education include reduction of child and maternal mortality, improvement of child nutrition and health, lower fertility rates and improvement in economic production”.
Apart from the objective of impacting the nation’s development through education of the girl child, Anand Mahindra also wanted to encourage Indians to ’give back’ in a focused manner. Hence Project Nanhi Kali was designed as a sponsorship support programme which allows individuals to participate and support the education of a girl child in India.
Partners In The Cause
Since 2005, Project Nanhi Kali is jointly managed by the K. C. Mahindra Education Trust and Naandi Foundation. The project provides academic, material and social support that allows a girl child to access quality education, attend school with dignity and reduces the chances of her dropping out. Project Nanhi Kali is working with 19 NGO implementation partners at the grassroots level to ensure that the Nanhi Kalis receive academic, material support and social support. The K.C. Mahindra Education Trust regularly monitors the NGOs by giving technical inputs wherever required to ensure that quality education is being imparted to all the Nanhi Kalis.
How Can You Help?
Project Nanhi Kali is a participatory project where you can sponsor the education of an underprivileged girl child. You can sponsor a Nanhi Kali from primary school studying in class 1-5 at just Rs. 3000 a year, while for Rs. 4200 you can sponsor a Nanhi Kali from secondary school studying in class 6-10. Thereafter, in the first year you will receive the photograph, profile and progress report of the Nanhi Kali you support, so you are updated on how she is faring in both academics as well as extracurricular activities.
