Bengaluru NGO boosting education in rural areas

Bengaluru: Cherysh Trust, an NGO headquartered in Bengaluru, has teamed up with KLE Technology University, Hubballi to help boost rural community development and educational opportunities. The agreement between Sapna Ravindran, CEO of the Trust, and Basavraj Anami, Registrar of the University, was signed last month.

Sapna’s team has been working in schools in Haliyal, Uttara Kannada, for over a decade. The NGO supports the local community by holding remedial classes in English and mathematics for school students, apart from upskilling women from the villages in the region. “While education is our flagship programme, we also train girls and women in skills like shawl- and quilt-making and running sugarcane bud nurseries. The objective is to help them be self-sufficient,” says Sapna, adding that they also link them to markets by helping them participate in exhibitions. 

For the education programme they work in tandem with school administrations and state government’s education department to identify the children who can benefit from the classes. “However, now we are reaching out to all children,” she shares. This year they are hoping to scale up and reach as many children as they can.

She adds that her team has seen marked improvement in children who have been attending the classes. The scope of the classes goes beyond education and also imparts confidence and life skills. 

They have been receiving requests to extend their classes beyond Haliyal and hope to tie up with corporates. Sapna clarifies that “they will continue to focus on schools that do not have many special programmes for their underprivileged children”.