EDUCATION-Tools of Power (TOP):

ADWAN has experienced that “Equality is unfeasible without Education”. Education enables girls and women to develop all the latent powers to combat all forms of discrimination, allowing them to enjoy their rights and a good life. Therefore, ADWAN is running both formal & informal education programs as follows:

  1. Literacy Led Program: ADWAN is enabling children and adult women to become literate. Early Child Education refers to the ability of kids to read and write the basic numeric system and the alphabet.  Literacy is important for both children and adults. Thus, ADWAN is funding adult literacy programs that enable women to keep financial records in their self-help groups.
  2. School level Scholarship Program: Because of factors such as illiterate parents, poverty, marginalization, and hopelessness, Dalit children are much less likely to attend/complete school and to pass the Secondary Education Exam (SEE), the basic secondary school qualification exam. According to national data, only 1.6% of Dalits complete the SEE. Poor families depend financially on their children’s labor both at home and outside the home. Since girls in general are not valued highly, their education is often being sacrificed. Thus ADWAN is sponsoring the education of these young women with the support of American individuals. Many girls and boys are benefitting from this program and the numbers of Dalit students attending school has increased dramatically. Currently, ADWAN is only able to cover a small number of boys and girls with this program and so many needy kids are waiting for support.
  3. Ambitious Girls Fund: Dalits comprise only 1.6% of those with a SEE or above; and only 0.8% of those with a Bachelors’ degree. The low educational status has a multifaceted impact on the socio-economic and political life of Dalits. To enable higher education for Dalit girls, ADWAN runs the Ambitious Girls Fund for 10+2 to a Bachelor degree. ADWAN could not support all the girls who need this funding due to a lack of resources. ADWAN is seeking support for hundreds of these girls.
  4. Earn a livelihood: ADWAN’s education program enables girls to earn their living by engaging in government and private jobs. This gives them sufficient chances to earn a living for themselves and support her family.
  5. Friendship and social bonding: Education brings people together and helps them make friends. Sitting in a classroom with fellow learners is a social bonding experience that helps to forge strong relationships between the upper and lower caste. This bonding takes place in adult literacy classes and group meetings as well.

The aim of ADWAN is not to develop one single good value but to produce healthy human beings who understand the meaning of life and what it demands from them.  From youth to adulthood, people thrive on intellectual and moral cooperation. Supporting this would create individuals with much healthier and more fulfilling lives.