The Need:
The project Future Smiles is envisioned with the objectives of providing holistic educational and social empowerment of the students belonging to disadvantaged categories of the students in general and society in particular. It has been brought to light through different research papers that peer; neighborhood, family, process of socialization also plays determining role in the educational advancement of the students. Keeping research outcome in mind, holistic projects is planned wherein family, peers and students are integrated their needs pondered over. Based on assessment of the needs of vulnerable children educational, economical, guidance and counseling support services were conceived in order to ensure long term self reliance and dignified future of the belonging to disadvantaged category of the students.
Rationale:
There are many ambitious children who are unable to meet their educational needs due to various reasons such as, lack of finances, over responsibilities at home, un-affordability of educational services, unavailability of educational services, lack of opportunities, unsupported families giving less or no importance to education. There are many children who have ability to perform well but due to such factors they remain in the unwanted vulnerable situation. Extreme poverty among the families in the slums of Mumbai forces many families to withdraw their children from school at young ages and are forced into labor in order to help support their families. The high school/college charge fees that are beyond the reach of most deserving students, hence these children tend to drop out of school and college to provide for the family.
Objective:
- To Provide financial support/ scholarship to students from slum area of Andheri (E), Mumbai in order to enable them to continue their education.
- To increase involvement/ awareness of parents, students and teachers in education through beneficiary committee in slum area of Andheri (E), Mumbai.
- To provide guidance on personality development to students of slum of Mumbai through the workshops.
- To provide information about career choices to students and prepare them / guide them to choose career path.
Target group:
Education is one of the important tools which have addressed social and economic inequalities. But educating oneself depends to a great extent on the level of awareness that parents have access to education and resources at the disposal of an individual or the family. The social and economic realities prevent sizeable population away from seeking quality education. The lack of quality education or lack of education at large has inimical impact on the social and economic mobility of the individual and family. Keeping stock of the reality, the project is planned in order to address educational requirement of the students. Some of the target groups which are conceived for the project are stated below.
- Underprivileged children from slums area of Andheri (E).
- Students belonging to socio-economically backward communities.
- Dropout students