March 08 2016, 16.24 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
Class X students of Satya Bharti Adarsh Senior Secondary School - Fattubhila, Amritsar won the STAGE 3 SPECIAL RECOGNITION PRIZE at the International School Enterprise Challenge 2015
8th March 2016, Amritsar:Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises today announced the success of Class X students of Satya Bharti Adarsh Sr. Sec. School, Fattubhila, Amritsar(Punjab), a rural school run in Public Private Partnership mode with the Punjab Government, at the International School Enterprise Challenge 2015 organised by a UK based charity – Teach A Man To Fish. This rural school’s winning entry was awarded with the Stage 3 Special Recognition Prize at the competition, competing with over 2900 entries fromschools across 100 countries. The competition encouraged young students to take up the challenge of establishing a socially responsible, yet profitable business as a school project.
The Satya Bharti Adarsh Sr. Sec. School, Fattubhila students’ strategy for the project was to prepare pickles and marmalade from the hand-picked raw material abundantly available in the school’s surroundings and then selling these items to community members. With these funds, the students provided notebooks, stationary and other school supplies for the poor students of the village and also learnt the aspects of an entrepreneurial activity.
Pavneet Kaur, one of the winning students expressed her delight and said, “The competition has not only induced entrepreneurial values in us but has also made us aware of our responsibility towards the society. This award brings a great sense of achievement and has encouraged us to continue striving for the best in the future.”
Since the inception of the Satya Bharti School Program – the flagship initiative of Bharti Foundation, students from 254 Satya Bharti Schools have been proving their excellence in various academic and non-academic fields. As the Foundation celebrates 10 successful years of this program, this victory brings validation to the Foundation’s aim of ensuring quality education for all Satya Bharti School students across rural India.
Vijay Chadda, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bharti Foundation added, “The aim of ensuring holistic development is central to the Satya Bharti School Program. We are happy to see our students adopting this approach and being recognized for their efforts. It is indeed a proud moment for all of us at the Foundation.”
About Bharti Foundation*:
Bharti Foundation provides free education to underprivileged children in rural areas. Its Programs (Satya Bharti Schools, Satya Bharti Learning Centres, and Quality Support Program) presently reach out to over 73,000 children from socially and economically challenged backgrounds, with special focus on the girl child.
Bharti Foundation’s initiatives include:
Ø The Satya Bharti School Program:
The Satya Bharti School Program is the flagship program of Bharti Foundation and is currently celebrating 10 successful years of implementation. This rural education initiative provides free quality education to underprivileged children, with a special focus on the girl child. The program envisions transforming students into educated, confident, responsible and self-reliant employable citizens of India with a deep sense of commitment to their society. The program’s reach is multi-pronged, encouraging active involvement of the rural community, parents of students and like-minded organizations working in the field of education in India. Making a lasting and sustainable impact on the community where schools are present and finding innovative solutions, through its primary and senior secondary schools, to create replicable and scalable components in the program ensures delivery of quality education. The Satya Bharti School program is being implemented with the intent to arrive at replicable and scalable components of quality education which may be adapted by the Government and other like-minded organizations. Reaching out to thousands of underprivileged children, the program, through its focus on holistic development, aims to bring forth a new generation of citizens eager to usher in positive change. Currently 249 primary/elementary Schools and five senior secondary schools are operational across Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal reaching out to 40,742 children and employing 1,642 teachers. Focusing on the girl child [49% girl students] and the weaker sections of society [75% of children from SC/ST/OBC Communities], the program is one of the largest end-to-end education initiatives by a corporate group in the country.
Ø Satya Bharti Learning Centres:
Bharti Foundation has introduced the remedial/bridge courses program in close partnership with ‘Educate A Child’ - a global initiative. The program aims at bridging the education gap of out of school children and mainstream them into regular schools. The first phase of the program has been deployed in partnership with the Government of Rajasthan. Currently, 432 Education Volunteers are engaged in teaching 9,876 out of school children, of which 50% are girls, enrolled at 484** Satya Bharti Learning Centres. Till now, 10,350 children have been mainstreamed, with the total impact reaching up to 22,251 children.
** 402 centres have been closed as most of the OOSC’s in these villages have been mainstreamed (number included in overall impact); in some villages the count of OOSC’s have dropped to such a low figure that it has gone below the minimum numbers required to run a centre, as per Government norms.
45 Centres had to be closed because of unavailability of qualified education volunteers.
2 Centers were closed due to mass migration (in Madhya Pardesh).
Ø Satya Bharti Quality Support Program:
This initiative envisages working with the government system and improving the quality of schools through need-based interventions. Bharti Foundation has taken the learning and best practices from the Satya Bharti Schools to the Government schools for improving the overall quality of schooling experience. The program aims to partner the Government schools and work along with its leadership and teachers to support them in their journey towards excellence. Currently, 25 government schools are under active implementation supported through this model, across Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, reaching out to 12,330 students and 514 teachers.
Ø Satya Bharti Abhiyan:
Bharti Foundation has undertaken a major initiative – ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ - to improve rural household sanitation facilities in Punjab. Inspired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s call to the corporate sector in his 2014 Independence Day speech to strengthen Government’s initiative on this score, the Foundation has decided to adopt Ludhiana district – home district of the Founders - as its focus area for improvement of rural sanitation. As part of this program, the Foundation has committed an investment of INR 100 Crores over the next three years for constructing toilets in rural households lacking such facilities in over 900 villages across the district. In addition to rural household sanitation, ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ will also invest in improving sanitation facilities in Government schools in rural Ludhiana by building new toilets for girls, where no such facilities exist.
Till now, the Abhiyan has directly benefitted over 50,000 users, providing 10,162 Individual toilets across 407 villages of Ludhiana district.
Ø Nyaya Bharti
Nyaya Bharti was launched in November 2015 to help deserving and underprivileged undertrials languishing in jails across the country for minor offences by assisting them with legal and financial assistance and also promoting awareness about every individual’s constitutional right to legal defense. It is a first of its kind national level corporate initiative in the country in line with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s Vision of ‘SabkaNyaya’ – Access to Justice for all. Its Board will consist of eminent persons led by Justice A.S. Anand (Retired Chief Justice of India) to provide oversight and guidance to the initiative and a panel of young public spirited lawyers shall provide pro-bono service towards the initiative.
*All data as of 31st January, 2016
