School Adoption Project
A Study on empowering the female Children in Government Schools
Project Report (11/2016 To 04/2017)
Programs:
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SWECHHA Program – Empower the adolescent female children in Menstrual Education and Hygiene
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Nutritional Supplement Program – Help the malnourished children with Iron & Protein supplements
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Remedial Teaching Program – Improve the average academic performance of schools
Schools:
1. SWECHHA Program: (Menstrual Hygiene Awareness)
SWECHHA Educational Session (Phase 1) in Schools
School 1 (Salipeta Municipal Girls High School) 17th Oct 2016
School 2 (Ramakrishna Public School) 20th Oct 2016
SWECHHA Review/Follow up Session (Phase 2) in Schools
School 1 (Salipeta Municipal Girls High School) 17thNov 2016
School 2 (Ramakrishna Public School) 17thNov 2016
Programme Cost for SWECHHA – 6 months (Nov 2016 – Apr 2017)
Reasons for Positive Deviation:
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Actual Cost of Sanitary Napkin is less, Rs. 20 as compared to estimated Rs. 25
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Number of needy female children identified are less, 50 as compared to estimated 100
Snapshot of Pre-Assessment Survey: Some interesting facts:
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79% of the female children said they have no clue about the science of menstruation
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Only 3% of the female children responded that they do yoga or stretches during the cycle. Rest 97% do not know what kind of stretches to do and why.
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60% of the female children said they skip school during this time since they are not comfortable in changing pads in the school. The reason could be shy, lack of locked washrooms & dustbins to dispose the used ones.
Impact of the program:
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71% of the female children agreed that the blood during the menstrual cycle is NOT a bad or impure blood
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Close to 90% of the female children responded that will NOT skip the school anymore during the monthly cycle.
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68% of the female children are now clear on how they should safely dispose the sanitary napkins they use.
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49% of the female children are now against using any pain killers for menstrual cramps.
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67% of them are clear that they should NOT use any kind of medicines for cycle postponement.
The above statistics clearly show the difference this program has made in the lives of these female children. Once the female children is educated and empowered, it is the entire family that will be educated and empowered.
2. Nutritional Supplement Program
After examining the BMI for female children in both schools (that are involved in the Swechha program) in October 2016, we have identified 90 students who need support with nutrition.
Programme Cost for Nutritional Program – 6 months
Reasons for Positive Deviation:
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Total Number of female children covered are less, 90 as compared to estimated 100
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Number of Protein Packets Supplied per month is less, 1 as compared to 2
Impact of the program:
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In School 1, Improved BMI for 25 female children out of 30.
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In School 2, Improved BMI for 35 female children out of 60.
3. Remedial Teaching Program
Remedial Teaching was started in November 2016 and continued for 2 months only. There were several challenges we encountered in this programme.
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There were 60 female children shortlisted for this programme from both schools. However only 30 started coming regularly. The dropout rate was 50%.
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There was lot of absenteeism for first 10 days
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There was non- cooperation of school management (Salipeta Grils High School).We had issues in getting the classroom as there used to be several programmes, workshops running in the school for outsiders. There were also times when the construction work was going on which disturbed our classes.
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We had to let both the faculty members leave due to personal reasons.
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Several of the female children started feeling shy and avoided several classes since they are from 8th and 9th class but learning the basics of 2nd& 3rd class. Though we tried to motivate them to understand the importance of basics, it became a tough job to retain them in the class and focus.
Actual Cost for Remedial Teaching Programme – 2 months
Reasons for Positive Deviation:
The programme was conducted with 100% attendance for two months only as opposed to 3 months planned. We could not continue the programme for the third month due to the challenges we faced as mentioned above.
Impact of the program:
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80% of the female children have acquired the basic read and write skills in Telugu and English and they have been added to the main stream. Earlier, many female children were not able to write their own name in Telugu / English.
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The attendance level of these students has gone up since they know realize the importance of education.
Scholarship for a Needy Girl
One student was in need of scholarship to continue her Intermediate 1st year at Sri Chaitanya Junior College, Kakinada. She was a very bright student of Sri Rama Krishna Public School and referred to us by the school management. We have verified her academic record, visited her house and confirmed the need.
So, we provided Rs. 5000 to her as the scholarship and include the expense in this project.
Summary of Project Expenses
Project Executed by – Padala Charitable Trust (PCT)
Padala Charitable Trust (PCT) is a non-profit, non-government organization founded and registered in India in 2002.It started off with a primary goal of providing financial help to the economically disabled students who excel in academics and have a strong desire in pursuing higher education, with no bar on their caste, religion or gender.To date, the Trust has awarded 614 worth for students under the Educational Scholarship Program. You can watch the success stories section to see how our scholars have become sponsors by paying it forward. Over last few years PCT has been working on Socially Relevant Initiatives (SRI) to make a bigger impact to the needy around. Project (Adopting Orphans and Semi-Orphans from Govt High Schools), Project (Motivational and Leadership Training Programme in High Schools), Project (Honour Role Models in Govt Elementary Schools), Project (Empowering the Adolescent Girls in Menstrual Hygiene) are the major initiatives at PCT which have been making huge difference to the society. More details can be read at our website: http://padalacharitabletrust.org