Education

India, with 287 million illiterates - is the country with the largest number of adults without basic literacy skills, (Source: 2015 Unesco report). To compound the problem, an average of 326 out of 1,000 students in rural areas are dropping out of school, National Sample Survey Organisation's (NSSO) last survey reveals. Unesco has put the number of out-of-school (OOS) children at 1,7 million in India. A survey commissioned by the Centre put the number for 2014 at 6,1 million, with SC and ST children making up 49.03% (2,973,000) of these. Lack of proper infrastructure and sanitation in schools, low quality study time including poor lighting has led to high dropout rates among children.

Dharmalife Response
Lighting up Young Minds: The campaign seeks to engage rural children through interactive collective storytelling sessions to promote reading as a sustained activity. Recognizing the problem of bad quality and safe lighting in villages, Dharmalife promotes the use of solar lamps in rural India.
Beti Padhao Roshni Badhao: is a national level campaign centered on ‘gender equality and clean energy’. Dharmalife promotes the use of non-polluting solar lamps as an alternate to the widely used dim and polluting kerosene lamps to increase the quality of night time study. Swacch Vidlaya: Dharmalife is driving the message of ‘Clean India: Clean Schools’ in rural India through this campaign. A key feature of the campaign is to ensure that every school in India has a set of functioning and well maintained water-, sanitation- and hygiene facilities.
Internet Saathi Project : The Internet Saathi Project (ISP) aims at creating awareness among rural communities about internet and its benefits for their own growth through women both as facilitator as well as participant, partnering with Google and Tata Trusts.

Impact:
Children reached with literacy campaigns - 564,000
Women trained in digital literacy - over 3,5 million