Samerth Charitable Trust

Supported by: WEL

About Organization

Samerth’s vision is to build a humane, sustainable & equitable society. 

The mission of the organization includes the bid to: 

• Work towards strengthening the capacities of vulnerable communities and groups to get their entitlement in every aspect of human existence.  
• Work with the government to include provisions for marginalized groups by creating and showcasing alternative models.  
• Engage and advocate for gender-balanced development through collective, participatory, and empowering actions. 

As part of its strategy, Samerth believes in urgent action, innovation, using traditional knowledge with a scientific temperament. 

Location of work

The organization works in Kutch, Rapar Block; and Ahmedabad (Urban) in the state of Gujarat. The organization has a presence in 7 districts in the state of Chhattisgarh. The organization by instituting 16 Early Education Centres in Ahmedabad. It later expanded into the field of peace education programs and mobile libraries. With time it began to engage with government Aganwadis, as a site of intervention. Since 20017, Samerth is working with 13 schools to enhance the quality of education. 

Challenges

Early in the year, the team commenced to work in an online medium, which was predominantly English. Developing teaching-learning material in Gujarati became a challenge. Interactions and workshops on mental well-being, team building, etc., became important. In the next 3 years, the program will establish a resource center with 7 trained educators reaching out to at least 25 schools and 3,500 students. We also hope to expand the scope of the resource centers to cater to schools in and around the Ahmedabad area like Sanand, Lambha, Vatva, etc. 

Future plans

The next three years focus on culling out learning and developing modules with support from Dakshinamurti (for early education 3 to 6 years) and Eklavya (for Grade 1 & 2 – 6 to 8 years). This support – intense in year 1 and later need based will help the team to come into their own as mentors and supporters to schoolteachers and early education practitioners. 

Engaging parents, making them participants of their child’s learning and for them to understand and appreciate importance of continued support in school’s endeavours will be core part of the program. Similarly working with management and bringing together – developing their individual vision for their school, its pedagogy, core values as well as broader goals to work together as peers will be encouraged. The resource centre is then expected to become sustainable over a period of time with a model education centre, space to showcase their pedagogy and teaching and learning materials – addressing capacity building needs of educators in the field of foundational learning. 

In the next 5 years we hope to equip more community members and initiate 2 more resource centres in other areas of Ahmedabad like Vatva, Behrampura etc. – with a current population of about 8 lakh people and similar social and cultural context and challenges. 

By the end of first year, we plan to have at least two more trainers emerge from the remaining group of 5 (3 experienced and 2 new staff). Thus, the programme will be designed to create master and support trainers for foundational education. 

Samerth will devote close to 25 days in training. Fourteen days with Dakshinamurti, Eklavya and with other resource organisations. Samerth is also planning to develop a resource centre. To this end, it will engage with Dakshinamurti as well as Eklavya and other resource agencies like Jodo Gyan and Umeed.