AID INDIA is a non-profit organization, founded in 1996, by a group of IIT and BITS alumni who quit corporate careers to work on various development initiatives. AID INDIA’s education initiative ‘EurekaChild’, where ‘Eureka’ represents the spirit of discovery, focusesprimarily on education quality improvement programs in Tamilnadu. All AID INDIA’s projects aim to instill this spirit in every child. Over the past several years, AID INDIA has worked with several thousand Government schools, NGOs and village centres in over 10 districts of Tamilnadu. AID INDIA’s ‘PadippumInikkum’ Tamil reading skills program reached out to teachers and children in more than 8000 schools all over the state. The following are the current programs of AID India.

Eureka SuperKidz

Learningsfrom the ‘PadippumInikkum’ program and demand for a good quality education, led to the conceptualization of AID INDIA’s flagship Eureka SuperKidz program in 2010,  Eureka SuperKidzis an innovative and sustainable village centric after-school program, that has been focusing on learning levels of underprivileged and marginalized children from standards 1-8. This program helps children attain basic skills in Tamil, Math and English. Each village has 2 tutors who take daily evening classes using specially designed colourful and attractive materials. The tutors focus on learning goals and measure every child’s skill through a simple visual tool called the ‘Skill Chart’.  The Skill Chart has specific goals for each month and each child’s name attending the centre is also mapped on it. This simple tool helps tutors focus more on children who need additional help and support to attain skills.

 Several studies have repeatedly shown that though both Government and Private schools in rural areas have well qualified teachers, the learning levels are quite lower than the expected levels. This is primarily because most teachers are not able to identify the specific areas where a child is lagging behind due to lack of a systematic tracking mechanism that will help them focus on these children better.

 As the next step, AID INDIA building on its experience of the Eureka SuperKidz program in 500 villages across Tamilnadu, is now expanding its reach to work with Government and Private schools also, to bring larger level impact in the state.

The Eureka SuperKidz program has been especially designed integrating the following key elements

• Specific learning  goals for every month
• Attractive learning materials and activities in Tamil Math and English to make learning fun and interesting
• Regular evaluation and tracking through Skill Chart to identify and focus on children lagging in a particular skill.
• Training teachers through interactive and innovative methods.
• Village level events that showcase the achievements of children and tutors, to promote parent engagement and community involvement
• ‘Eureka SuperKidz’ certificates to all children enrolled in the program on achieving the targeted skills in each of the subjects.
• ‘Eureka SuperTeacher’certificates awarded to teachers who have been instrumental in bringing a remarkable change in the learning levels of children.

The program will reach out to 40,000 children across Tamilnadu in the next academic year improving their basic skills in Language and Math.

I run an urban learning center at Royapeettah chennai and the funds I raise will be used to support the center at Chennai. You are welcome to see the center and also volunteer if you have time and interest.