Study Hall Educational Foundation, India
About Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF)
Mona Partner Since 2008
Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF), situated in Lucknow, India, supports an impressive portfolio of initiatives aimed at educating and empowering underprivileged girls in urban and rural India. Since it began in 1986, SHEF has reached over 2,500,000 students through direct and indirect initiatives in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
SHEF has been working for nearly four decades to redefine education, and has built a network of initiatives and an institution around this commitment. The network comprises nine educational institutions and four outreach initiatives that provide quality education to all children, with a special focus on girls. Using a holistic, inclusive, life-outcomes based approach, we have re-cast education across the entire range of challenges that children face in building their agency and personhood.
The Challenge
With 1.3 billion people, India comprises 20% of the world's population. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India, and SHEF works across all 75 of its districts. With a population that is ⅔ that of the United States, if UP were a country it would be the 5th most populous in the world!
According to The World Factbook, 22% of Indians earn less than $1.90/day. While the population is also very young, with 50% under 25 years old, there is a shortage of qualified teachers and it is common for government schools to have classes with up to 120 students. One-third of the world's child brides (5 million girls) are in India and 1 million girls are killed in the womb through selective termination. 50% of married women report domestic violence.
The Solution: SHEF Programs
Aarohini Girls Empowerment Program
With support by Mona Foundation, the Aarohini program promotes education for girls, prevents violence and child marriage, and empowers girls to see themselves as equal persons deserving of respect. Its pedagogy is unique and complex. The initiative is primarily a teacher training program, which equips teachers with the skills and resources to promote change in their schools and communities. The program uses critical feminist pedagogy and community mobilization to create a chain of positive influence that starts with teachers as agents of change, and extends to students and parents in order to protect the rights of students.
In 2023, the Aarohini program trained 1,394 teachers in 73 districts of Uttar Pradesh impacting 72,200 students.
GyanSetu Community Education Centers
"One-room Schools"
Gyan Setus (one-room schools) provide a way to educate kids living in abject poverty in urban slums or rural village where there is no access to clean water, sanitation, or schools, bring them to grade level and transition them to the public school system to give them a fighting chance for a better life for themselves and for their families. Overtime, Gyan Setus have proven to be an effective solution to the chronic problem of education systems that have isolated and alienated the children on the margin.
Mona began supporting this initiative in 2017 with a commitment to fund 14 schools ($3,000/schoo/year) serving 30-40 students. The cost covers the salary and travel expense of a qualified teacher, school uniforms, supplies, and an occasional meal when possible. With loyal support of our donors. . In 2023, 116 of these centers educated 3,199 children, trained 118 teachers and involved 15,995 community members.
GyanSetu centers also act as hubs of community transformation and are now also offering
early childhood education, adult literacy programs, digital literacy classes, life skills and specific sessions to educate mothers on the basics of health and hygiene, domestic violence, child marriage, alcoholism, etc. and connect them with community services that can save their lives or protect them. The videos below show the evolution of this initiative all the way to 2023 Gyan Setus 10th year anniversary sports extravaganza!
Digital Study Hall
“YouTube meets Netflix in a schoolhouse with a dirt floor.”
To address the shortage of qualified teachers in poor and remote rural schools in India, Digital Study Hall (DSH) creates videos of the best teachers in actual classroom sessions and provides them free of charge to all teachers and students in poor public schools. Ongoing teacher training is offered to reinforce the quality of teaching and learning.
With the country in lockdown and all schools closed to prevent the spread of COVID19, thousands of teachers and students are now flocking to the DSHONLINE platform. And it is working! When Mona started supporting this initiative 10 years ago, DSH was offered in 23 schools. In 2023, 227 new videos were produced this year and quality checked by subject experts, benefiting 2,500 students in 16 government schools. Its YouTube channel now has 126,822 subscribers with over 22 million views.
Prerna Girls School
K-12 Education
This school provides K-12 education to
1,082 underprivileged girls
using its own unique pedagogy to help them see themselves as equal and autonomous individuals deserving of respect, to understand the oppression they face, and to develop the skills to overcome it. Mona provides scholarships for Prerna students and supports a number of graduates to attend Study Hall College.
India’s Daughters Campaign
changes hearts and minds
This community-based campaign raises awareness of gender violence and child marriage and promotes girl’s education and equality. The campaign included drama competitions, film making, poster making, essay writing, and poem writing competitions, and awarded scholarships of INR 1,54,000 (~$1,870USD) to the winners.
SHEF held an annual India's Daughters Campaign (IDC) award ceremony. In attendance were Mr. PK Tripathi, Joint Director of Samj Kalyan (Social Welfare), and representatives from organizations such as UNICEF, Room to Read, AIDWA, AALI, Jijiwisha Society, Robin Hood Army, DIET, and Manavsrijan. For the past two years, the IDC has focused on boys, with this year's theme being "It's time for men and boys to change," and aimed at educating boys and men to challenge patriarchy and become advocates for gender justice.
In 2023, the campaign engaged 15,488 children and involved 272 government officials.
Mona Visits SHEF, 2023
Watch two days of our visit to SHEF! On day one, to a government school using Digital Study Hall video lessons, Prerna Girls School, and a community meeting at a GyanSetu center. Day 2 highlights the GyanSetu Sports Extravenganza celebrating their 10 year anniversary with 700 students coming together to compete in a variety of activities, our visit to Study Hall College, and a critical dialogue session with the Aarohini Girls Empowerment Program!
How we help
The Mona Foundation has partnered with SHEF since 2008. Since then, SHEF has scaled its model of education from 21 to 2,320 government schools. Mona currently supports five SHEF programs:
- Digital Study Hall
- GyanSetu Community Education Centers (one-room schools)
- Prerna Girls School and Study Hall College (scholarships)
- Aarohini Girls Empowerment Program
- India’s Daughters Campaign
2023 Achievements
313,973 students were educated and 1,570 teachers were trained and engaged 437,145 parents
across all SHEF’s programs
- Aarohini Program empowered 72,200 students
- India’s Daughters Campaign engaged
15,488 children from October - December 2023
- Provided 150 K-12 scholarships and 50 college scholarships
- GyanSetu Centers – Evolving to include adult literacy, technology training and entrepreneurship. 116 centers, serving 3,199 students, 118 teachers trained, 15,995 community members involved
- Celebrated 10 years! Filled a whole stadium with over 1,600 students and community members at their Sports Micro Olympics
- Implementation of Skills Development Center Huge Success
- Expanded GyanSetu to also include educational and vocational programs for adults, educating a total of 3,199 students
- DSH Online increased its subscribers to 126,822, with over 22 million views and accessed by 237,000 unique users.
2024 Needs, $319,327
- GyanSetu Centers: $120,000
- Plan to establish 200 GyanSetu Centers that will all include
early childhood and primary education,
digital literacy,
adult education and
skills development components
- Aarohini Initiative: $59,327
- Implement year 2 of 5 year Memorandum of Understanding with UP government to train over 2,000 teachers in 746 KGBV schools (public schools)
- Will focus on co-ed schools in Sitapur and have third party evaluations on their impact
- DSHOnline: $30,000
- Will hire additional members and purchase needed equipment.
- Will focus video content on 50 special education videos.
- DSH to partner with state government to use video lessons for governmental teacher training programs
- Scholarships: $80,000
- Will provide 150 Prerna K-12 scholarships ($350/ea) + 50 Study Hall College ($550/ea) - increase in cost due to inflation
Updates
14 to 100 Centers in Four Years
November 2021 - The students in need we support include kids in city slums and poor rural villages around Lucknow, India with no access to clean water, sanitation, or schools. GyanSetu centers, or one-room schools provide a way to bring these kids to grade level and transition them into the school system. We started with 14 centers in 2017, grew to 63 centers by the beginning of 2021, and now crossing 100 centers threshold as we respond to the immediate needs of the community.
October 2021 - Your support helped grow and scale from 14 to 100 the Gyan Setu (One-room Schools / Centers of Community Transformation) that Mona Foundation supports through Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF) in India. These schools are located in either urban slums or rural villages where there is no access to clean water, sanitation, or schools. Watch this video to hear their thanks.
Recent Activities to Combat COVID19
- Moved all teaching and learning activities online for schools supported by SHEF, leveraging WhatsApp, Zoom and DSHOnline
- Providing 1,130 meals per day to a community kitchen, through Didi’s Foods (a SHEF partner organization), set up by the Government of Uttar Pradesh.
- Provided critical information on social distancing and prevention to over 2,000 government schools and connected them to COVID-19 government relief programs
- Produced 1,000 washable face masks and distributing them to various hospitals
- Distributed 140 packets of sanitary napkins to 125 girls.
Non-Formal Education Centers
Many kids living in the very poor “slum” areas in cities or in remote villages never attend school. GyanSetus, or non-formal education centers (in practice, one-room schools) provide a way to bring these kids to grade level and transition them into the school system.
GyanSetu centers also act as nurturing hubs of community transformation and holds meetings for mothers 6 to 7 times a month. During these meetings, a certified teacher (with support from a counselor), train the mothers on the basics of health and hygiene, domestic violence, child marriage, alcoholism, etc. and connect them with community services that can save their lives and keep them going. Each meeting is documented and leads to a community action.
Brookings Institute & Social Entrepreneurship
On December 20th, 2018, the Brookings Institution published a policy brief titled “Mainstreaming gender equality and empowerment education in post-primary schools in India,” and a blog titled ”To empower girls in India, make gender education compulsory" by founder Dr. Urvashi Sahni. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Their mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level.
Social Entrepreneur of the Year - In 2017, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, in partnership with the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation, named Dr. Urvashi Sahni, founder of Study Hall Educational Foundation, as the winner of the India 2017 Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
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