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Hello! My name is Rajesh. I am the founder-director of Lokmitra.
Way back in 1998, through Lokmitra we started a journey of getting to know better the educational challenges that children of Uttar Pradesh face, with a belief that the government is responsible for ensuring the equitable quality of education to all children. We believe that good school education has the potential to lead us to a better world.
In the most populous state of India Lokmitra has a high potential for improving the prospect of deprived children in realizing their educational right. Our work needs to be scaled up.
We are far away from ensuring that every child gets an education of equitable quality from neighborhood public schools. Quality education has wide-ranging benefits for societies. With nearly 25% of India’s population being below the age of 14 years, where we go from here depends on our ability to provide an excellent education to them.
Uttar Pradesh has 25 million children in Grade 1 to 5. About 45% of children go to government schools. Most of these students are first-generation learners, from the marginalized section of the society. Just half of Grade 5 children are able to read Grade II level text. This causes children to drop out of elementary schools, thus keeping the next generation in the vicious circle of poverty.
Lokmitra works for all such children guided by Vision that “All children grow to their fullest potential through effective school education system” LOKMITRA is strongly pursuing its Mission that “Every child from the disadvantageous section of society completes elementary education to become a constant learner and empowered member of the society”.
Following are two broad Goals of Lokmitra. First one is to improve the learning outcomes in at least 200 state government Primary & Upper Primary Schools in about 5 rural blocks and 3 urban areas of Uttar Pradesh and thereby ensure good enrolment of all children with high attendance. The second one is to promote Civil Society involvement for vitalizing governance of elementary education.
The education program of LOKMITRA has evolved with the sustained grant support of Tata Trusts and Oxfam. Lokmitra has benefitted from the work of premier educational organizations. The strategy of Lokmitra is to engage with the public education system in a multi-pronged and multi-level manner, generating effective ideas and practices for systemic and sustainable improvement leading to effective and positive learning outcomes. There is synergy in its grassroots effort & state-level influencing. It has evolved some innovative practices and developed learning materials for systemic changes. Lokmitra inspires teachers to become a reflective practitioner, inculcating the culture of peer learning and democratic management. Motivate parents and children to participate in school education and its governance to target learning outcomes that improve the social and economic status of a disadvantageous section of society. Engage with the public education system in a multi-pronged and multi-level manner, generating effective ideas and practices for systemic and sustainable improvement leading to effective and positive learning outcomes.”
Given that schools hardly get any academic guidance and supportive supervision, Lokmitra promotes school development from within by bringing together teachers, parents, & children as learning groups to face school level challenges and work for school improvement. Apart from inculcating the culture of peer learning, it provides teachers suitable hands-on support. Students learn how to work together in small groups. Parents and Local Bodies work jointly with teachers through School Management Committee meetings.
To ensure basic reading-writing ability and numeracy, Lokmitra has developed an Academic Support Package that consists of lesson plans, workbooks, learning activities, and it is meant for multi-level teaching-learning in groups. A booklet has been published for teachers to give them better insight into how children learn to read and how to improve teaching to promote reading ability.
To improve the governance of the school, Lokmitra ensures proper reconstitution of School Management Committees and provides training to parent members. It also federates parent members of SMCs to enable them to engage effectively with the school and state functionaries as a collective voice.
So far Lokmitra has supported about 600 schools, which includes 200 schools with where we have provided pedagogy input. A third of these 100 schools and teachers have shown good progress in improving teaching practices and enhancing child learning and enrolment. There have been about 20 to 40 percentage point improvement in learning outcome and attendance in these schools in one academic year. So far 10,000 out of school children identified and provided supplementary education, resulting in one-third of them joining schools.
Lokmitra successfully initiated an Educational Coalition as a coalition of SMC Federation & NGOs in 2006. This has contributed to the enactment of RTE Act and its subsequent implementation.
In the most populous state of India, LOKMITRA has a high potential for improving the prospect of deprived children in realizing their educational right. Our work needs to be scaled up and its impact further deepened. Till 2012 Lokmitra mobilized quality grants as per our need. Due to the changed institutional donation scenario, it is getting increasingly difficult. We have a very little resource to work in Raebareli, where Lokmitra head office is based. We have to steer Lokmitra in a vastly changed context by mobilizing sufficient resources from individuals who aspire to contribute to the making of a better world. We have taken the initiative to mobilize volunteers through our youth engagement in colleges in the project area and through online platforms. We need to have core funding, that is in addition to the institutional grant for a specific project. This will enable us to fill the gap during the project cycle and specific gap within a funded project. More importantly, it will enable Lokmitra to strengthen its core team that can give better support to the field team. It will enable to strengthen our work in Raebareli schools. Lokmitra is getting Institutional Grant from Tata Trusts, ITC Ltd, Oxfam India, American India Foundation and PHF (UK). We estimate that if we raise about Rs 35 Lakh ($ 50,000) annually from individuals, it would be good enough. We aim to reach this level in the next two years.
Your support will go towards meeting salary & travel expense of School Development Facilitators, provision of library books, workbooks and other activity-based learning materials for children and capacity building of teachers, School Management Committees.
So we appeal to you to come forward and join our Mission, be advocate and supporter in whatever capacity it is feasible.
Do visit our website www.lokmitra.org.in to see our previous year Annual Financial Reports and Statutory compliances.
Following are Social Media links.
https://www.youtube.com/user/lokmitra
https://www.facebook.com/lokmitra.edu
https://www.instagram.com/lokmitra.ngo/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lokmitra/
You can email me at lokmitra.rajesh@gmail.com or contact through Whatsapp at this number 94150 71246.
Thanks
Way back in 1998, through Lokmitra we started a journey of getting to know better the educational challenges that children of Uttar Pradesh face, with a belief that the government is responsible for ensuring the equitable quality of education to all children. We believe that good school education has the potential to lead us to a better world.
In the most populous state of India Lokmitra has a high potential for improving the prospect of deprived children in realizing their educational right. Our work needs to be scaled up.We are far away from ensuring that every child gets an education of equitable quality from neighborhood public schools. Quality education has wide-ranging benefits for societies. With nearly 25% of India’s population being below the age of 14 years, where we go from here depends on our ability to provide an excellent education to them.
Uttar Pradesh has 25 million children in Grade 1 to 5. About 45% of children go to government schools. Most of these students are first-generation learners, from the marginalized section of the society. Just half of Grade 5 children are able to read Grade II level text. This causes children to drop out of elementary schools, thus keeping the next generation in the vicious circle of poverty.
Lokmitra works for all such children guided by Vision that “All children grow to their fullest potential through effective school education system” LOKMITRA is strongly pursuing its Mission that “Every child from the disadvantageous section of society completes elementary education to become a constant learner and empowered member of the society”.
Following are two broad Goals of Lokmitra. First one is to improve the learning outcomes in at least 200 state government Primary & Upper Primary Schools in about 5 rural blocks and 3 urban areas of Uttar Pradesh and thereby ensure good enrolment of all children with high attendance. The second one is to promote Civil Society involvement for vitalizing governance of elementary education.
The education program of LOKMITRA has evolved with the sustained grant support of Tata Trusts and Oxfam. Lokmitra has benefitted from the work of premier educational organizations. The strategy of Lokmitra is to engage with the public education system in a multi-pronged and multi-level manner, generating effective ideas and practices for systemic and sustainable improvement leading to effective and positive learning outcomes. There is synergy in its grassroots effort & state-level influencing. It has evolved some innovative practices and developed learning materials for systemic changes. Lokmitra inspires teachers to become a reflective practitioner, inculcating the culture of peer learning and democratic management. Motivate parents and children to participate in school education and its governance to target learning outcomes that improve the social and economic status of a disadvantageous section of society. Engage with the public education system in a multi-pronged and multi-level manner, generating effective ideas and practices for systemic and sustainable improvement leading to effective and positive learning outcomes.”Given that schools hardly get any academic guidance and supportive supervision, Lokmitra promotes school development from within by bringing together teachers, parents, & children as learning groups to face school level challenges and work for school improvement. Apart from inculcating the culture of peer learning, it provides teachers suitable hands-on support. Students learn how to work together in small groups. Parents and Local Bodies work jointly with teachers through School Management Committee meetings.
To ensure basic reading-writing ability and numeracy, Lokmitra has developed an Academic Support Package that consists of lesson plans, workbooks, learning activities, and it is meant for multi-level teaching-learning in groups. A booklet has been published for teachers to give them better insight into how children learn to read and how to improve teaching to promote reading ability.To improve the governance of the school, Lokmitra ensures proper reconstitution of School Management Committees and provides training to parent members. It also federates parent members of SMCs to enable them to engage effectively with the school and state functionaries as a collective voice.
So far Lokmitra has supported about 600 schools, which includes 200 schools with where we have provided pedagogy input. A third of these 100 schools and teachers have shown good progress in improving teaching practices and enhancing child learning and enrolment. There have been about 20 to 40 percentage point improvement in learning outcome and attendance in these schools in one academic year. So far 10,000 out of school children identified and provided supplementary education, resulting in one-third of them joining schools.
Lokmitra successfully initiated an Educational Coalition as a coalition of SMC Federation & NGOs in 2006. This has contributed to the enactment of RTE Act and its subsequent implementation.
In the most populous state of India, LOKMITRA has a high potential for improving the prospect of deprived children in realizing their educational right. Our work needs to be scaled up and its impact further deepened. Till 2012 Lokmitra mobilized quality grants as per our need. Due to the changed institutional donation scenario, it is getting increasingly difficult. We have a very little resource to work in Raebareli, where Lokmitra head office is based. We have to steer Lokmitra in a vastly changed context by mobilizing sufficient resources from individuals who aspire to contribute to the making of a better world. We have taken the initiative to mobilize volunteers through our youth engagement in colleges in the project area and through online platforms. We need to have core funding, that is in addition to the institutional grant for a specific project. This will enable us to fill the gap during the project cycle and specific gap within a funded project. More importantly, it will enable Lokmitra to strengthen its core team that can give better support to the field team. It will enable to strengthen our work in Raebareli schools. Lokmitra is getting Institutional Grant from Tata Trusts, ITC Ltd, Oxfam India, American India Foundation and PHF (UK). We estimate that if we raise about Rs 35 Lakh ($ 50,000) annually from individuals, it would be good enough. We aim to reach this level in the next two years.
Your support will go towards meeting salary & travel expense of School Development Facilitators, provision of library books, workbooks and other activity-based learning materials for children and capacity building of teachers, School Management Committees.
So we appeal to you to come forward and join our Mission, be advocate and supporter in whatever capacity it is feasible.
Do visit our website www.lokmitra.org.in to see our previous year Annual Financial Reports and Statutory compliances.
Following are Social Media links.
https://www.youtube.com/user/lokmitra
https://www.facebook.com/lokmitra.edu
https://www.instagram.com/lokmitra.ngo/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lokmitra/
You can email me at lokmitra.rajesh@gmail.com or contact through Whatsapp at this number 94150 71246.
Thanks
