I have been working in different area of social work since adolescents. I had always believed that Global Goals like SDGs 2030 can be implemented only with effective grassroot level programs taken up by the community at their level. This led to found S for Schools which aimed at working towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal no 4 i.e. Quality Education.

1. S for Schools has reached to over 3760 + dropout students in past 3 years and made an effort to bring them back to school via different methods like student counselling, parent counselling, fee waivers, activity based learning and any other available and suitable method
2. The turnover ratio has been seen to over 45 % in rural villages for drop outs
3. We has also successfully built 13 mobile libraries for ZP schools in Maharashtra and are working with over 690 students to improve their vocabulary along with reading and writing skills.
4. Project work conducted in Maharashtra (8 places), Bangalore and Rajasthan.
5. S for Schools is non funded, runs independently without any political intervention or agenda, and has engaged over 4600 + youth in the work of Sustainable Development Goal no 4: Quality Education

The total youth population of India is equivalent to the total population of 129 countries. In coming decade we will be the country with the youngest population in the world. My effort was to channelize the youth energy to implement projects of social importance that will enable the youth to work around their idea/ work at least for 20 years. I have always thought that education is a right that every individual owns and to ensure that is of good quality should be our job.

Being a youth led organization, sustainability has been the biggest challenge in running this project successfully over the years. We had over 100 volunteers showing interest to work on this project but practically when there is help needed or any project has to be delivered, there have been problems with the schedules as the volunteers are themselves packed with exams and other things. It becomes difficult to rely on someone else to get the job done, hence I have landed up in conducting the programs myself when there were last minute cancellations. It has been a really tough job to form a team and get things rolling independently. However we cannot deny th e fact that there have been few people/ friends who have stuck around for more than a year and helped in maximum projects.

Large numbers of children out of school create pressure to enroll children and provide classrooms, teachers, and educational materials, a task made difficult in many countries by limited education budgets. However, getting children into school is a high priority for countries and crucial for achieving universal primary education. Limitations and Exceptions: Due to different data sources for enrollment and population data, the number may not capture the actual number of children not attending in primary school. It is estimated that 124 Million are out of School in the entire world, we are with a vision that if such grassroot level initiatives are taken at each place who look after the problems only in their specific area then a lot of this number might be covered.

We plan to reach to over 5 new rural area in next 3 years along with strengthening the core team value to 12.

www.sforschools.org