our projects

International

Ministry of Education, Maldives

We’ve signed an MoU with the Ministry of Education, Maldives, to enhance learning levels of children studying in all 213 government schools of the country. Hear Dr Abdullah Rasheed, the Minister of State for Education, Maldives, give his views on the transformative ALfA program.

Literacy Chicago, USA

In collaboration with Literacy Chicago, the ALfA English toolkit has been converted into videos. The program is being piloted with low-literacy adult learners from marginalized communities in Chicago, with impressive results. Experience the excitement of the first learner.

Kupanda Sisters, Guyana

A school in Guyana is taking up the 45 Days to FLN Challenge, benefitting around 200 children. The school is using the ALfA e-Learning materials to give its students a high-quality, low-carbon education.

Arca Beta, Peru

DEVI has conducted an online training for teachers for Arca Beta NGO, who are now implementing ALfA in their school in Iquitos, Peru. We hope that the impressive learning results will inspire more organisations to join the campaign.

Government School Empowerment

After successful implementation of its ALfA Disruptive FLN Program in the Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, the department of school education has signed an MOU to implement this in 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh. So far we’ve expanded to 180 schools of Lucknow, Unnao and Barabanki districts.

Read the full report

Devi Sansthan has been working closely with the district administration to improve the learning levels of school students – initially in 10 schools, and then 200. The impressive results have attracted media attention, and have also been discussed in a recent book by Prof. Reimers of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Based on poor results in the National Achievement Survey (2017) Sambalpur was declared a low performing district. DEVI Sansthan has been working in 10 schools of Sambalpur since August 2022, with discussions underway to scale up the program across the district. Read the full report

An MoU has been signed with the Department of Education, Chatra, Jharkhand to fill post-Covid FLN gaps of government school children of grades 1-5. In the first phase, 50 government schools will be covered followed by a district wide scale-up. Inspired by visionary leaders such as Rajnath Singh, DEVI will work with the district government to ensure literacy for all.

Watch the minister’s speech on DEVI’s literacy program.

Each One Teach One

City Montessori School

Every year since 2014, DEVI runs the Each One Teach One Campaign, in which school and college students use our literacy materials to teach an illiterate child or adult how to read. A five year MoU with CMS Lucknow means that 25,000 student volunteers (Grade 5-11) will participate in the campaign each year, adopting illiterate learners and helping them achieve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (Grade 3 level).

Lucknow University

In August 2018, DEVI Sansthan launched a collaboration with the National Service Scheme of Lucknow University. We have been motivating and training college students to teach illiterate children and adults using the ALfA materials. Over 1,100 students from 15 colleges have taken the training, and 700 ALfA kits have been distributed.

City International School

Students of City International School, Lucknow have been a driving force behind the Each One Teach One campaign. Some are teaching the school’s support staff, others their own maids. Along with the generous support of SBI Life, CIS has been working to help make children of nearby slums Chandan and Sugamau literate.

MS Education Academy

MS Education chose five teachers to become master trainers, who are working to spread the message of service to staff and students throughout MS Education and beyond. MS Education school and college students are a key part of the ‘Each One Teach One’ campaign. Their vision is a chain reaction of pass-it-on literacy: that some of the people who have learnt to read will in turn teach others the key skill of literacy.

Uttar Pradesh Middle Schools

In mid 2023, DEVI Sansthan signed an MOU with the Uttar Pradesh department of secondary education to partner together on a literacy program. School students will use the Literacy Now App to teach illiterate neighbours, relatives and community members reading, writing and basic arithmetic.

Adult Literacy

IIMPACT West Bengal

DEVI Sansthan is working with IIMPACT in two districts of West Bengal since August 2022. In the first phase, 1000 women have been taught the key skills of literacy and health & hygiene awareness, with a particular focus on young mothers.

HCL Foundation

The project is developing reading, writing and financial literacy skills among illiterate women who are part of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) formed by HCL Foundation. A one-month pilot implementation of the program was successfully completed in January 2022 with 1500 learners, leading to plans for scaling the program up.

Sahbhagi Shiksha Kendra

Since December 2018, DEVI Sansthan has been partnering with Sahbhagi Shiksha Kendra to enhance their adult literacy program in Sitapur district. 15 young, educated women are using the Global Dream toolkits to spread literacy. The target learners are primarily older women from SC and Muslim communities – a group with very low literacy rates.

Kurauni Village

The literacy program in Karauni village, on the outskirts of Lucknow, is a highly scalable community-based model. In 2015, 22 women were empowered with a literacy training, and went on to teach 180 women within the first few months. The impact has only escalated from there on, meaning that Kurauni is now almost fully literate.

Mizoram Adult Literacy Directorate

DEVI Sansthan is helping the Mizoram government work towards universal literacy. After helping replicate the ALfA toolkits into Mizo, we conducted an online training for master-trainers. In the first phase, 5000 learners are being covered from 3 districts: Aizawl, Mamit and Lawngtlai. The Mizoram school education department is now expressing interest in using the ALfA program for young learners.

NGOs

Teach for India, Mumbai

Starting in November 2018, DEVI Sansthan launched a partnership with Teach for India schools in Mumbai. We provided training and literacy toolkits to empower schools to ensure all children learn to read well, in Hindi, Marathi and English. Some of the children also took up the materials to teach their family and community members.

Magic Bus Foundation

In August 2019, DEVI Sansthan began partnering with Magic Bus, which is setting up Community Learning Centres in a variety of rural and regional areas in states including Maharasthra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as part of their ‘childhood to livelihood’ program. Among other activities, community learning centres are using DEVI’s literacy kits to help young people gain vital FLN skills.

Piramal Foundation

Devi Sansthan has signed an MOU with Piramal Foundation to enhance Foundational Literacy and Numeracy of around 50 million children across 112 Aspirational districts covering 27 Indian states. This exciting partnership will address the massive learning gaps of primary government school children caused due to nearly two years of school closures due to COVID-19.

Community Development

Advocating for the poor

DEVI Sansthan volunteers helps people from slums make Aadhaar & PAN cards (basic ID), ration cards (subsidized food grain), bank accounts and pensions. One focus has been gas connections, as the fuel transition from wood to gas has huge health, environmental and economic benefits. Another initiative is helping differently abled people make their disability certificates and apply for pensions.

TB Challenge

Often the poor are unable to access the healthcare they need, due to the complexity and expensiveness of the medical system. Tuberculosis is rampant in many slums – people are more at risk of catching TB due to overcrowded conditions, generally poor health and under-nutrition. We help by taking people to hospitals, buying medicines, and giving nutritional support to patients.

Slum Empowerment

DEVI Sansthan is running holistic community empowerment programs in several urban poor communities in central Lucknow – the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. DEVI’s slum community empowerment project is called MELA: Medical, Entitlements, Literacy Assistance. We help take people to hospital to receive proper treatment, and access their rights from the governments.

EkTara School

The City International School (CIS) Indira Nagar Campus hosts an afternoon shift school, as a service to the disadvantaged slum communities nearby. Both children and adults come to learn basic reading and writing, and women are also given vocational training. The CIS parents are invited to support a child, so that children from the financially weaker sections of our society can access a quality education.