CSR For Girl Power!

Here's how your CSR funds can educate and empower the girls and women in rural Uttar Pradesh.

Project by: Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (PPES)

Location: Anupshahar, Uttar Pradesh

Category: Eligible CSR activity as per Companies Act 2013, Schedule VII

(i) eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting preventive health care and sanitation and making available safe drinking water:

(ii) promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills especially among children, women, elderly,… and livelihood enhancement projects;

(iii) promoting gender equality, empowering women,… and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups;

Funding required: INR 6.68 Lacs (see details of funding required below)

Working Since: 15 years. In 2000, PPES consisted of one small building with a class of 45 girls. The number has now increased to over 1400 as of December 2015.

Impact area: Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (PPES) has been improving the lives of females in rural India from the poorest sections of society. The organization provides free education for girls and job opportunities for women, to create a new generation of self-reliant and educated women who may have the potential to break the cycle of poverty in the region.

Unique concept: PPES is a social and economic empowerment initiative. It attempts to eradicate female discrimination and provide gender equality. 85% of girls in Anupshahar do not have access to primary education. The majority of girls are married under the age of 18, the practice of female infanticide is still widely practiced and abuse is rampant. Girls who do reach adolescence are routinely denied access to food, education, and medical care. Generally, PPES only accepts the most impoverished girls from families that earn less than INR 600/month (US $11). The school also guarantees all PPES graduates a job.

The School:

Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School (PPGVS) is a non-partisan, secular school registered in the state of Uttar Pradesh educating girls from kindergarten through class twelve under its umbrella via 4 schools. The educational curriculum covers Hindi, history, home sciences, math, computer sciences, art, and English (spoken and written), as well as lab-based physics, chemistry, and biology. After class ten, the girls have the option to either pursue further studies through class eleven and twelve, or join the school’s vocational center and work in the textile industry. PPES works with neighboring institutions to provide girls with scholarships to attend nursing, information technology (IT), or fashion-design schools, or to work in the hospitality industry at well-known, first-rate hotels.

Additionally, throughout the year, students are taken for exposure trips to places like Delhi, Agra, and nearby areas of Anupshahar. International Exchange programs are also organized to allow students to develop a better understanding of the world and bring PPES students one step closer to becoming global citizens.

Other Verticals Of PPES:

Community development - The Community Development Division (CDD) focuses on the overall growth of economically and socially marginalized villagers, particularly women in 196 villages of Anupshahar. The initiative works to create Self-Help Groups and focus in areas like Health, Hygiene & Sanitation and Women’s Rights & Entitlements, Dairy Programs and Non-Dairy Commercial Enterprises. Savings, Inter-loanings, Bank linkages and finance are also facilitated.

Health, Hygiene and Sanitation Program (HHSP) - Aims to improve basic health, hygiene and sanitation for all women and children in 60 identified villages of Anupshahar.

Some facts & figures:

• In 2011, 97% of the PPES students who sat for the Uttar Pradesh board exam passed it, as opposed to only 68% of the Bulandshahar students and 70% of the overall region of Uttar Pradesh.
• In 2012, all the PPES students – in all grades that have to take board exams, i.e., 10th, 12th and degree grades – succeeded: 100% passed.
• PPES drop-out rate was 15.4% compared to 47.3% for non-PPES students in the school’s area.
• Vaccination rate among PPES graduates households is 87% compared to 29% in non-PPES households.
• PPES student/teacher ratio was 23 compared to 42 in U.P. and 33 in all of India.
• Fertility rate (ages 16-30 years) is 1.08 children for PPES graduates compared to 1.63 children for similar non-PPES females.
• 5% of PPES graduates earn a regular monthly income compared to 5.6% for non-PPES women in the area and that income is two times greater for PPES graduates.

Details of funding required: Funds requested are part of expenses directly incurred on 100 students per year, calculated as:

Books & Stationery: @500 per child per year/ INR 50,000

Uniform: @550 per child per year/ INR 55,000

Food Expenses: @2040 per child per year/ INR 2,04,000

Scholarship: @2250 per child per year/ INR 2,25,000

Transportation: @1341 per child per year/ INR 1,34,100

Total: INR 6,68,100

In the past 15 years of PPES operating in Anupshahar, the attitude of the surrounding community has gone from one of resentment toward girl education to one of appreciation for gender equality and female empowerment. PPES defines its ultimate objective as educating, provide job training, and offer jobs to at least one daughter of each of the 50,000 poor families of the tehsil of Anupshahar.

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