Get Rural Girl Children Virtual Coaching

Thousands of rural girl students of Tamilnadu belonging to Dalit and Adivasi Communities called as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) respectively, do not get opportunity to equip themselves equal to their counterparts from elite so called forward communities, some of whom are from even their own village.

Once successful, this solution will positively change the lives of thousands of SC/ST girl students from villages who are deprived of the chances of undertaking special coaching classes especially during this Covid-19 pandemic times as their financial conditions do not allow and incapable of handling such virtual session and learning on par with their elite counterparts.

We want to help 2000 of them to get virtual coaching operated centrally from GUIDE by committed and empathizing experts on certain subjects through webinars such as Zoom conference, systematically conducted and are truly interactive. If this is scaled globally, can change millions positively.

Per 2011 census of India, the Tamilnadu SC and ST population is 9.47 million and 6.6 million respectively and is 20% and 1% of total population. State literacy is  87.04%- 91.8% male and 82.31% women, only 6.3% SCs and 5.7%  STs, go beyond local school. Yet again, the rural SC/ST girls are far less educated than their counterparts in the cities. It is these girls and women we are concerned about. The girls of SC/ST families in the villages are discouraged from going to higher education beyond their village with multiple reasons such as: needed to take care of their younger ones, parents do not wish to pay for  transport and school fees; worried about the sexual harassment the girls would suffer when outside their village and/or the possibilities of being wooed into falling in love while the girls are still children by legal terms. They have to come back home in time to avoid harassment so they cannot imagine taking evening coaching classes in the town of the school they attend. While these girls are managing with these stumbling blocks, Covid-19 has put them behind as they cannot get coaching within the village through webinars as being costly. 

We intend to help SC/ST girls to get what their urban peer groups get: namely virtual class rooms (Webinars). Availing expert coaching for girl children studying 9th through 12th standards, the crucial years before getting into graduate or diplomat course for any technical / legal / scientific /art courses is our objective. Marks with which they pass out in 10th and 12th standards make the decision about what they could choose as their courses further. Right now all urban / elite community girls are getting properly oriented through webinars conducted by their schools or by professional education companies such as Byjo, which these rural SC/ST community girls do not enjoy. Webinars are new and inaccessible to them as they are costly: you need smart phone to start with. Our solution aims to create virtual class rooms within the village through we will be providing quality coaching at almost no cost. We will be providing each hamlet with one set of smart phone, home projector, 6'x5’ screen public addressing system and a web camera. The coaching classes run centrally will be relayed through internet conference modes such as Zoom App and the girl students will interact with the remote teachers. 

The SC and ST girl students of 40 hamlets among the villages where GUIDE works are selected for this project. All of them are from poor landless families of agricultural laborers or other unorganized workers. They cannot afford and so cannot imagine of having virtual class rooms coming to their doorsteps.Therefore, it will be great blessing to them.  Many live in government-provided one room houses, where they do not enjoy study room luxuries. Their combined studies are result of the need to use the street lights  and even in that, they cannot go to the next street, as it would provide chances to loitering youth who can misuse them. This solution brings them to safe place identified by the local volunteering woman leader with the help of other village women (who are related to these girls) and help them have combined study in the form of the virtual class room coaching. It helps them to get clearance on the doubts they have and as the other affordable girls do by attending the session in the same time as them and get over equally advantaged level and would be able to compete in education with their elite peer group in towns.

The SC/ST girl students going schooling outside their village, enjoy the great opportunity of expert coaching beyond the school teachers which the elite, upper caste, urban students enjoy through virtual class room will and resolve the challenge of elite coaching to them without any expenses or the need to go to the experts. As they are getting this chance for the first time, they will be using it to their best, by interacting, raising questions without feeling ashamed or inferior and gain the best out of the sessions. This will break one more shackle of caste oppression they suffer otherwise. 

The ‘Byju’ type of virtual classes are pre-recorded and non interactive. Virtual class room in the forms of webinars are provided now by private schools to their students on heavy fees and so affordable to higher caste or higher income people among the urban SC/STs who are a rare phenomenon. Even if the parent of a SC/ST girl student is wealthy enough to pay for such virtual classes, she will be using only a smart phone that only one can use and watch especially now during these days of social/physical distancing. Therefore even such an affordable girl cannot help other non affordable girls. Thus the screening through projector connected to a smart phone  or a laptop with internet connecting facility and a web-camera,  is the best way to cater to the need of about 50 girls at a time and with sound equipment that has a microphone to talk to the remote teacher is the best innovation we could think of to cater to the most poor and it is how the solution is unique. There are no competitors as we intend to collect notional fee from these girls except besides expect them to arrange for electricity to do the screening, which they can do in turn every day. Since it is a no-income making venture no one would compete. Even if someone competes, for argument sake, it is only good as more notional fee service will be available for these poor girls and it would better the opportunities.

The technology used in the solution is internet conferencing, using available software and multi media. The webinar software such as Whatapp, but preferably Zoom App and recent India Namaste App, where up to 100 persons can participate. Using such technology, instead of one person at each end, we will have girls in numbers and will be captured by web camera that would be placed above the screen. The multi media usage in yet another technological support that is essential as the participants on one end could be as many as 50. Home projector that would flash images from a laptop or  mobile into screen around 30 sq. feet size to enable  visible space for everyone of the participants. Sound system with amplifier will amplify the sound of the coach to quality audibility. The public addressing system that can afford to accommodate up to two microphones (but we intend to use only one for the time being for cost-cutting and also to avoid two people asking doubts at a time) so that doubts raised by the participant will be audible to the resource person. On the other end, we will be using a laptop where the App will be down loaded and used by the teacher / coach. To ensure that the teacher will be able to see every one sitting in front of every screen, we will have a TV monitor as large as 54 inches at GUIDE office. Keeping in mind of power fluctuation, power back-up will be used. 

For Namaste App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inscripts.namaste&hl=en_US

For Zoom App: https://zoom.us/education

For multimedia: https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?q=multimedia+tools+and+applications&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

For Public Addressing System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_address_system

Web Camera: smallbusiness.chron.com › benefits-having-webcam-69111

Power Backup: https://journals.plos.org/plos...

I have done it only as a matter of routine. I know for certain the use of all these technologies and also the various models, types and related usage it can put forth. In sum, technology-wise, we have not introduced anything new, but only what is available in the market, but the usage they are put to, is innovative,up scaleable and useful for the most deserving rural girls and women belonging to the most economically and socially down trodden communities.

The solution designed in this project has the long term objective of developing skills that are essential to resolve issues of the community they belong to, whereby make the living conditions better in all aspects – food, health, education, political understanding, access to commons, protection of environment and the like- that are needed to make the life of one holistic. The vision of GUIDE is a community where women enjoy equal rights and opportunities, which the project would support.

The immediate input in this project is the support in education to the school going girls of the selected 10 hamlets of economically poor SC/ST population in the project villages where GUIDE. The input for the subjects (esp. of 9th through 12th standards) in which they are generally ‘weak’. During the Covid-19 lock down period when we intend to conduct four day-time sessions of 90 minutes each on one subject. In the next years, during the summer day-time sessions are preparation for the next school year and also some general knowledge sessions that would help them to be conscious of environment, health aspects, civic sense and whatever would be useful for being a better citizen. Preparing them towards competitions such as speaking, writing poems and acting dramas – will be included to make them holistic.

During schooling months, sessions will be in the evenings, two sessions starting at 5.30 pm and ending at 8.45 pm, with 15 minutes gap to have the next session to start (if necessary) and each session being 90 minutes long. Thus it may be one session of, say, science and another of Mathematics on  one day and the next being English one session and commerce another. Thus rotations will be made basing on the subject that the girls need attention most.

These regular sessions, while helping them to be on par with their classmates on all the subjects, create a wholesome positive change among these children and their parents. Ultimately they will be responsible citizens towards their community and along with their parents will be instrumental for phenomenal change of the unwanted value system of nation.

We used to cover 20 villages before Covid-19 thus reaching about 1000 students. Currently since we are able to physically reach only 4 villages( about 200 girls), and they are of all standards and with one teacher physically present, has limitations with regards to subjects covered. With ambiguity about schools reopening, the volunteers who are running the sessions are providing general knowledge sessions, beyond whatever subjects they could cover. 

Given that funds by Solve is available, we will have 2000 girls in the first year, that is roughly about 50 girl students from each of the hamlets of the classes of 9th through 12th. Expanding needs financial support to invest on the equipment for the newly included hamlets and on the allowance local volunteers in an increasing manner. The payment for the experts will remain the same as they will be conducting only the same number of sessions. Every year we want to increase 20 more hamlets (that is 1000 more girl students) and reach 100 hamlets (5000 girl students) by 4th year and peg at it for the 5th year. Supposing the ones completing the 12th standard is 10 out of the 50 in each hamlet (that is 20% roughly), we will have by end of 5th year 3800 girls would have graduated 12th standard with high quality thanks to the project support, apart from the 16,200 girls attended the sessions every year. These are the direct beneficiaries and the indirect beneficiaries (the families) will be of equal number.

The virtual classes are a wonderful model that the fee collecting schools have already started running. But the government schools are not able to venture into it since such scheme is not designed by government.  

Virtual Classes are something only NGOs and such people with philanthropic commitment could take up. The caste Hindu affordable people will send their children to regular tuition centers where a teacher will be addressing 50 or students and that would still be plausible to the parents. So our efforts will not reach those parents largely.

For the student of us, who belong to SC/ST communities they cannot afford to pay such tuition. So the good hearts with expertise and willing to take a payment lesser than what they would get elsewhere is what would keep this unique experiment going on and expanding. That is why we are certain that NGOs with philanthropic mindset can ensure expanding this into many other areas, reaching millions.
Keeping that in mind, we will hold meetings with such NGO friends from this year on and whoever capable of reaching funding sources including Corporate Social Responsibility grants to start such efforts will do it and thus expand to a million by the time we reach the 5th year. It can easily be reaching over million, supposing we have 4 more NGO from each district of Tamil Nadu and we are sure to find them. And ideas like this will be interesting with local modification to youth in other states and other nations. 

Now:

Financial: Essential to kick start, as the beneficiary cannot pay; subject experts have to be paid, though partially for committed time. Post graduate students may offer help but we cannot expect year around time from them.

Technical: Handling smart phone, home projectors (sensitive), sound system, internet dongles and web camera need expertise that village girls may not have. Power fluctuation in villages and Coaching Center.

Cultural: SC/ST communities seen only movies on such screens and they may cause disturbance in the beginning. Boys of same village who study in the same classes may demand to be allowed to benefit from such sessions and if not permitted may cause disturbances.

Marketing: There may be more demand than we could afford to meet and so we may have turn down offers to establish such virtual coaching.

Next year:

Financial: We would need to find source to expand.

Technical: some equipment may snap or blow off, needing repair and replacement. The App providers may charge and subscription for the usage per hour may cost sizable.

Cultural: The village community where the screening happens may request the projector and the screen to be used to screening cinemas and may reduce the life of the equipment.

Next Five Years:

Same as above in financial and technical maters.

Legal: if government decides to regulate such sessions, they we will have to undergo certain licensing.

Technical: Replacements may be needed for equipment and we have not built in a provision for it. 

Technical: train volunteers sufficiently to hand the equipment (which will empower those young women) with damage control instruction. For power, we may consider power backup. supposing heavy payment demanded for internet webinars, we will consider developing our own app, with the help of Solve partnership.
Cultural: Meetings with villagers explaining positive impact on their girls and so the need to protect the equipment and providing support for the project will be inalienable contribution of the community. We will consider allowing boys as long as they behave as students and if the girls feel uncomfortable, we may design a separate session for them if experts are willing. The villagers may use the projector and the screen but through the orientation will be expected to make a payment agreed upon for maintenance.
Legal: By second year, we will have over 100 NGO running similar sessions and with a network formed, we will be able to handle any unwanted regulation by the government. We may also be able to get the support of government thorough schemes specially designed to support such efforts of NGO by Departments of Social Welfare, Education and /or SC/ST welfare departments of govt of TN. 
Financial: We would definitely depend on Solve to find source through partnership. We will also take our own efforts to find other Indian CSR support. We will encourage each family to pay one rupee per girl per day which would soon meet the cost of the allowance to the local volunteer, thus reducing the cost. 

Not relevant 

Full time staff:  15 (12 of these are women and 10 are women from the SC/ST communities and so are looking at this project with great expectations) The 3 men too are from SC/ST communities. 

Part time staff: 20 (all women and all are from villages of our project area and so are from SC/ST communities.

volunteers: 81 (all women and all are from SC/ST communities). 

We, as charity organisation dependent on external funding support for project operation and since we do not make profit to set aside a part of it for such philanthropic activities our staff is limited.

1. Education of all sorts is our strategy to get the serving communities empowered. We started running evening classes for school going children of all age group in 1985, when they were dropping out often and got up to school final at the most. Our efforts got some of them into High School and beyond, which institutions are outside their villages. As such educating, especially coaching on formal education is our expertise. 

2. Some who have been supported by us through evening classes of formal education and have gone past local schooling, are willing to support as non regular experts.

3. We through women associations have helped the village to get many felt  and strategic needs to be fulfilled. We have strong women’s associations in 100 villages and Resource Protection Committees (where men also members) functioning in all these villages. As such we have very regular contact with the communities where we introduce this solution, since we hold meeting at least once a month in their own villages. In fact in sessions with our women associations and Resource Protection Committees can be considered as one possibility of keeping the solution in proper order and backing of the community. 

4. Our village communities have often worked with us in resolving issues that are beyond the capacity of one village to resolve. As such they are committed to support us for all rightful cause. Thus the whole program will soon run as local people’s initiative with regards to day to day implementation.

We have no partnership with any technical entity. We are supported by M/S Manion Daniels, UK under the network called "Amplify Change" and what they support is educating and organising village communities in supporting the adolescent girls and young women who want to take action against gender based violence, sexual harassment, abuse, exploitation inflicted upon them when they commute to education and employment. These adolescent girls and young women are already oriented in the legal aspect related to it and so all they need is the support of their community who otherwise discourage them on various counts including cultural. 

We have no other partners right now. 

The business model of GUIDE is “Virtual Coaching”

Key customers: SC/ST Girls of poor families of 40 hamlets in Kancheepuram / Chengalpattu district villages, of age group 14 to 17, studying 9th through 12th in government free schools 
Key beneficiaries: The poor parents and families to which those SC/ST Girls belong to; The teachers of these government free schools where theses SC/ST girl children study (as this reduces their already over-taxed teaching schedule)
Products and Services we provide: Each 90 minutes session, covering portions of the syllabus of certain subjects which the customers have opined to be tough and therefore need support, through the survey done under the local volunteers. Two such sessions per day. Some special orientation on other than subject matters, for providing general capacity building and improving civic sense in these SC/ST girl children. 
Delivery method of these Products and Services: These sessions are provided through webinars that have interacting possibilities, that are flashed on the large screen by home projector, transported from either laptop or smart phone, that receives data through internet dongles. The sessions are provided by committed experts of the subject who empathise with these children, through webinar software, holding conference  sessions with 40 hamlet girl children. 
Why do they want or need them: These SC/ST children perform average or below average in their exams and always are considered incapable of competing with the upper caste peer group. They cannot afford to pay for any private tuition that the affluent / upper caste people enjoy. 

This being a product designed to serve those who are economically poor and socially outcast, the major means of sustainability will be through finding external fund support.  We will depend on funding support of donors, foreign and at some stage Indian. We will also hold public fund raising cultural event in Chennai for which we will get the tickets sold for higher price to whoever could afford, as a conscious contribution of them to this solution. There and later, through our website, bring to the knowledge of individuals who would like to sponsor, the  cost broken down per child attending, that they can pay for one and follow that child, get informed about her performance through one to one communication. We will also encourage the parents whoever could afford to pay Rs. One per day of the class, thus paying Rs. 24-25 per month. It would cut down the central budget cost, as it could pay for the volunteer of the village. Also they could contribute towards the electricity needed for the projector, by offering electricity connection from their house by turn: if there are 50 customers, then it would be a rotation of once every two months. We have not included the cost of electricity at village level, due to our strong belief that we can expect them to meet it thus. The contribution of the parents could increase every year little by little to meet the costs beyond the allowance for the volunteer. 

GUIDE is working for the betterment of the poor, rural SC/ST communities since it’s inception in 1985 and education (awareness raising and providing the needed knowledge) was always our main strategy. We had been always helping the school going SC/ST children with their formal education through evening supplementary education (tuition) where one person will be helping about 50 children belonging to various classes (from 1st standard to 12th) from a given hamlet. Such direct intervention did not get them the best tutoring. We want these children the best tutoring possible at their village. Now after Covid-19, the private schools (who collect heavy fee) have started virtual classes which these poor children do not get as they are from government free schools. The effort of running virtual classes for these poor children is what we apply for Solve to consider, because Solve unlike many other fund providers, want to support technically. We want technical support to develop equipment that could work on no or low or alternative electricity. We want also help in designing our own software, an app, that can be user friendly for these girl students. We of course need funds to buy equipments and pay subsidized honorarium for the experts who would run these sessions, but We also want help in designing it in such a way that it can be replicated easily by others so that such girl children from all over India, who are millions in remote villages could benefit, even if there is no electricity. 

1. We have a model but when it comes to getting others replicate, we may need to improve upon, to help them easily implement. We want Solve team to look into our business model and suggest improvements for the sake of replication.

2. We want Solve to help us design an app that can be user friendly, can be provided free of cost for such noble purpose without any strings attached. 

3. We want Solve help us design or get a producer design the multimedia public addressing/ reciprocal system that can be moved around and used on lesser or no conventional electricity and cheap to the most. 

4. We want Solve to help solve the issue of long term funding for such noble project of supporting the education of outcast SC/ST poor children of rural India through helping us have access to CSR projects that Solve could find connect-worthy. 

We want partners for the four different aspects mentioned above, but we would very much like to leave it to Solve and to Solve members to find suitable, easily accessible, institutions or individuals who empathise with the Dalit and Adivasi (SC/ST) children and would commit to make the project a successfully replicable model having the right technological backup and would tempt any well meaning philanthrophic local level, not very technically qualified NGO or CBO (community based organisation) to pick up and use. 

GUIDE works dedicated for the empowerment and betterment of women and girl children (please visit www.guideindia.org) among the 100 villages directly since 1985 and promoted other women CBOs and women-headed small NGOs through making them members of network called "Tamilnadu Women's Movement" (TWM) since 1986. Through TWM, GUIDE has helped women leaders of those NGO members / CBO women leaders equipped in leadership (meaning, having knowledge of law, rules, schemes,  attitude and gender perspectives), so that they can pass it on to poor women in rural areas of Tamilnadu. The women thus attended to are the most socially and economically underprivileged - Dalits (Scheduled Castes), Adivasi (Scheduled Tribes) and traditional rural fisher communities, operating small boats. Thousands of women are with legal knowledge about their rights and entitlements and information about schemes of government all over Tamilnadu and are asserting their rights and entitlement without getting any brokers in between, thus avoiding corruption and bribery. These women have also taken up legal action against gender based violence, sexual harassment and sexual exploitation through the knowledge and support provided by TWM. Every year they have massive gathering around March 8 and put forth demands to the state government for policy changes. Should GUIDE be selected for the award, the fund will be used to set virtual meeting possibilities in many more villages (where while the children get tutoring at certain hours), the women can hold virtual conference once a week and continue their struggles and provide support to other women groups. 

GUIDE has been dedicated to provide non formal education on information related to development and empowerment of the marginalized women. Thus with the name itself carrying the term education and with the motto, ’teach to fish’, an abbreviation of famous Chinese proverb and with emblem of hen with chicks (a bird that doesn't feed it’s small ones, but shows the food and expect the chicks to pick them up), we kept non formal education as the means to development and empowerment. Thousands of women got land title to their houses built in government land in their name (contrary to the practice of the title deed been given in the name of the man in the family), getting street lights, common water taps, repair of roads, bus transport and renovation of the village water bodies and legal action sexual harassment/exploitation/abuse outside home, domestic violence and the like in the north Tamil Nadu, only because of the education the women of this region were able to get from GUIDE and assimilate and utilize. This education is now spreading beyond the area of GUIDE through “Tamilnadu Women’s Movement” a network of women headed small NGO or CBO in many rural areas of various districts of Tamilnadu, mainly working among the SC/ST communities, the most deserving ones. Should we be selected for the award, we will use the funds to help women have better mobility for their agricultural and related products through vehicle that they could easily operate and with non conventional energy source. 

First of all, we are now looking for running a program with 40 hamlets are recipients. We can expand it to 100 in our district alone with only the equipment expense per hamlet as the major investment. The expenses related to running such a center will remain the same as the teachers will work from the nucleus from where the same program will be made available to all the 100 hamlets instead of 40.

We also want to support other NGOs who can pay for the teachers and run the nucleus and all what they would need is equipment, which we can supply from the prize. Thus we may be able to have a total of 500 hamlets covered and that would mean a total of 25,000 deserving children.