Our solution is ensuring thatScheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) girls get what their urban peer groups get: namely virtual classrooms. Availing expert coaching for girl children studying 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th standards, the crucial years before getting into graduate or diplomat any technical/legal/scientific/art courses is the 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 Bijo. This rural SC/ST community girls do not enjoy. Webinars are new and inaccessible to them as they are costly: you need a smartphone to start with. The solution aims to create virtual classrooms within the village through which quality coaching will be provided at virtually no cost. Each hamlet will get one set of smartphones, home projector, 6’by 5’ screen, and an audio system with a mike. 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 girl students of SC/ST community 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 classrooms coming to their doorsteps; therefore, it will be a great blessing to them. Many live in government-provided one-room houses, where they do not enjoy study room luxuries. This solution brings them to safe place identified by the local volunteer with the help of the village women (who are related to these girls) and help them have combined study in the form of the virtual classroom coaching.

http://www.guideindia.org

• India

• Youth
• Women
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities

We have just started and actually are on a very small scale of 2 hamlets and will definitely wish to scale to 40 hamlets (2000 school going girls) if financial support is available.

The ‘Biju’ type of virtual classes are pre-recorded and so one cannot actually interact with the teacher/coach on the spot. Virtual classrooms in the forms of webinars are provided now by private schools that collect a lot of fees and so only affordable to higher caste or higher-income people among the 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 smartphone 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 nonaffordable girls. Thus the screening through a projector connected to a smartphone or a laptop with internet connecting facility 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/coach is the best innovation we could think of to cater to the poorest and it is how the solution is unique. Once There are no competitors as we are not collecting any fee from these girls except that we expect them to arrange for electricity to do the screening, which they can do in turn every day. With such no income making venture, no one would compete. Even if someone competes, for argument sake, it is only good as more free service will be available for these poor girls.

The girl students of SC/ST community 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 classrooms coming to their doorsteps; therefore, it will be a great blessing to them. Many live in government-provided one-room houses, where they do not enjoy study room luxuries. Their combined studies are a result of the need to use the street lights for their study. Even in that, they cannot go to the next street, as it would seem to give chances to loitering youth who can misuse them. This solution brings them to a safe place identified by the local volunteer with the help of the village women (who are related to these girls) and help them have combined study in the form of virtual classroom coaching. The challenge is that the SC/ST school-going girls denote get the opportunity of expert coaching beyond the school teachers which the elite, upper caste, urban students enjoy. The virtual classroom will solve this and bring the 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.

Inclusion, non-discrimination, diversity and social justice are among the values that the project upholds. It is aware of the struggles that young girls and women from unprivileged castes in India have to go through on a daily basis, as well as the risks that it entails particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the project contributes to empowerment of young girls through education and virtual learning. ICTs are an important element in the sustainable development.