SAKHI for Girls Education with unconnected.org

Project status: Closed

Country: India

Partner: unconnected.org

Impact goal: 100 girls

About the project

This project took place in Mumbai, India, connecting young girls and women to the internet through unconnected.org's partner SAKHI for Girls Education. The project focused on capacity building for girls in slums by connecting them to a female tutor. SAKHI provides quality learning spaces and opportunities, so every girl will be able to continue her schooling confidently with quality learning. 48percent.org contributed with essential hardware and connectivity to be able to offer continuous education in the aftermath of Covid-19.

Results

At the end of the project, a total of 94 girls were directly supported with the learning tools of the project, however unconnected.org informed us that after the initial course is completed, the smartphones can be passed around, and the number of girls being connected is expected to be substantially higher. Also, their families will benefit, as both mothers and daughters are involved in their digital story project where they read together.

Challenges

Purchasing smartphones and connectivity in India is very complicated and very hard if you’re not an Indian organization. Transferring funds to India is not possible if the organization receiving funds doesn’t have the correct authorization from the Indian government. SAKHI doesn’t have that authorization, so purchasing the devices directly was not possible and they couldn't give SAKHI the funds to do it themselves. Unconnected.org was able to through our ambassador on the ground in India and a UK/Indian Charity Go Dharmic transfer the funds to make the purchases.

About the partner

Unconnected.org work on connecting students, refugees, women, and underserved communities. Their mission is to connect 100 million people to the internet.

Visit their website here to learn more about them.