Mona Foundation Visit with Grassroots Partners in India, March 2023

In March 2023, a group of Mona Foundation supporters and Board members travelled to India to visit three of our most impactful partner organizations: Study Hall Educational Foundation (Lucknow), Barli Development Institute for Rural Women (Indore), and Educational Initiatives (New Delhi).  Each of these organizations has decades of experience working tirelessly to educate and empower students in need to improve their own lives and help lift their families and communities out of poverty.

Highlights of each segment of Mona's visit are provided below with inspiring videos showing the faces of the students and grassroots partners that Mona supports.

STUDY HALL EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION (Days 1 and 2)

A Mona partner since 2008, SHEF supports an impressive portfolio of initiatives aimed at educating and empowering underprivileged girls in urban and rural India through direct and indirect initiatives in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Mona currently supports: 149 GyanSetu one-room schools in urban slums and rural villages; the Aarohini Girls Empowerment Program, now offered in 742 public schools and reaching 102,500 girls from disadvantaged households; India's Daughter's Campaign; and Digital Study Hall, which 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. We also provide 50 scholarships to Prerna Girls School (a full K-12 program for low-income girls) and 25 scholarships to SHEF College. Learn more.

Day 1 video: SHEF Founder and CEO Dr. Urvashi Sahni briefing our team on the scope of their activities, and visits to a government school where Digital Study Hall online content is being used to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and to two GyanSetu centers for community transformation - one was on a top of a roof! 

Day 2 video:  Attending the GyanSetu 10th Anniversary Sports Extravaganza where representatives from 149 Gyan Setu schools competed in several different sporting events, visiting the Prerna School and observed three sessions of "Critical Dialogues", a structured pedagogy through which both girls and boys are trained to see themselves as equal persons deserving of respect, having the right to agency and to voice their views in constructive conversations with their families and communities on the importance of education of girls and their right to lead a life of their choosing.

EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES (Day 3)

A Mona partner since 2021, Educational Initiatives works to ensure every child learns with understanding. Leveraging cutting-edge educational research and assessments and implementing technology-based solutions such as Mindspark, personalized adaptive learning software, Ei collaborates with local communities and public schools to improve quality of teaching and learning in low-income areas. Learn more.

Day 3 video: Visits to two government schools in rural villages around Lucknow where Mindspark is being used to improve the quality of learning for the most disadvantaged students in rural villages. On this visit, our bus could not cross a little bridge and we walked two miles through the fields and a village to reach one of the schools.

BARLI DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE FOR RURAL WOMEN (Days 4 and 5)

A Mona partner since 2005, the Barli Development Institute in Indore, India has been educating and empowering rural and tribal young women since 1985. Offering a six-month residential training program with curricula on literacy, vocational skills, and community development, Barli aims to provide young women with the skills to start their own business and the confidence to become leaders in the transformation of their communities. With its focus on service and community development, educating one woman at Barli improves the lives of 10-20 others immediately and 100 more over time. Learn more.

Day 4 video:  Visit to Barli Institute focused on training and uplifting the lives of the girls from rural villages around Indore. Offering a six-month residential training program with curricula on literacy, vocational skills, solar cooking, organic agricultural practices and community development, Barli aims to provide young women with the skills to start their own business and the confidence to become leaders in the transformation of their own communities.

Day 5 video: Visit to Alirajpur where many Barli graduates have established their businesses. After visiting several of their shops, we went to Kali's new home where she and other Barli graduates welcomed us to an unimaginable degree -- a beautiful tent, live music, refreshments and dancing all so generously set up in honor of our visit. Several young women spoke about how Kali has helped and inspired them.