Into the future

Stories From The Ground

Literacy India has been advocating technology-aided education and enhancing digital skills for over two decades. In sync with the fourth revolution and the futuristic metaverse, Literacy India has pioneered the delivery of ‘future skills training. The nature of jobs is changing, and so are the desired education and skills; evident from the change in school curricular as directed under the latest Education Policy by the Government of India.

The past year was a first in many ways. As we emerged from wave one of the global pandemic, we got struck by two more waves. Given the ongoing challenges, Literacy India was quick to adapt and move to virtual and hybrid classes and delivered seamlessly.

Employ-enablement to Digital Empowerment

Arpita Majhi,21, belongs to a distinct tribe of Bengal. Despite being poor, she completed her graduation. Education and Skill development are two crucial evolving goals last 25 years. It is eventually seen with the change of Govts that they have been recognised as essential pillars of the economy. She joined Literacy India in an introductory Tailoring course at Pratappur centre, West Bengal. After completing the initial period, she has taken admission in an advanced Tailoring course. She soon started her home base work to make different items like blouses, petticoats, nighties, Kurti, etc. She has participated in our UPI training program, and through that program, she has learned the process of UPI payment. Now she can receive and send the payment through various Applications like Paytm, phone pay, google pay etc. Her life is much easier while running her business and her personal errands. Digital Payments are the future and relatively safe. She knows it now.

Happy Feet

12-year-old Taniya is quite energetic and creative in her own ways. Her eagerness to work on a computer showed in her projects, where she animated her favourite characters. She is a student of Grade VII in SDMC primary girl’s government school in Bijwasan, New Delhi. She lost her father at an early age. Her mother, being a housewife, is dependent on close relatives for the upbringing of Taniya. Taniya’s uncle supports her family and wants Taniya and her sister to be independent.

Her aspirations and dreams are felt at an early age by everyone at the centre. Taniya got enrolled in coding, is a fast learner and aspires to be a designer of games. Her project work images show her excellence. Her latest project was a dancing doll with motion and music.

Change Is Possible

Vishal a student of class 5, is intelligent and witty. His father is a vegetable vendor his mother is a maid. His parents leave for work each morning, returning in the evening while Vishal was left alone with the phone to study online. Livelihood was the focus, and being illiterate, his parents could not pay attention to him. Vishal took advantage of the situation and spent the entire day on his phone playing games. This soon became an addiction. It took a few months of counselling and chasing up that Vishal gave in to systematic online zoom classes for which he was always unresponsive earlier. Literacy India’s education innovation Gyantantra Digital Dost has imparted education to a few lakh students, especially children who find technology fascinating. Vishal was part of Gyantantra(GDD).

The teacher encouraged him with regular visits to his home to help him understand the significance of learning. He found his discipline and the teacher’s efforts were not vain with time. The teacher also requested that his parents encourage him to study and monitor his video gaming time. Vishal now shares his work (both online and offline worksheets) punctually. He genuinely and enthusiastically participates in all of the activities. He’s also a regular participant in biweekly Zoom classes. In addition, he won first place for his enthusiastic participation in the Quiz competition. His performance in academics was a happy surprise for everyone in school and at home.