Zaya’s Hero — Aarti: High School Dropout, Teacher, Leader.
Aarti Naik started ‘Sakhi for Girls Education’, an after school education center, in 2008 in a very small room in a slum area of Mulund, Mumbai, with just 5 girls. Today, after almost 8 years, 50 girls are registered in her daily learning center and 500 girls are registered for her English reading library.
Aarti, who once failed in her secondary exam and dropped out of school, was recently named to the list of Highly-Commended Runners-Up of The Queen’s Young Leader Award for 2016. Aarti has won many prior awards, including the ‘World Economic Forum -Global Shaper’ award and the Changemaker Fellowship from Ashoka`s Youth Venture.
When Aarti first dropped out of school, her family was facing financial difficulties, and her father was supporting her two younger siblings. She did not want to be a financial burden, so she began making handmade necklaces and was earning Rs.9 per day (14 cents).
After 3 years she decided to re-take her secondary exam, passing it this time, and continued with her education. It was at this time that she understood the importance of education and that there must be other girls who might not have access to education because of a lack of financial support,. With that thought, ‘Sakhi for Girls Education’ was born.
Aarti faced a lot of difficulties in the initial days as she was a novice in the education field. She didn’t have proper training in teaching and faced difficulty in knowing how and what to teach. But her determination and dedication didn’t stop her there; she started watching videos and trained herself in a myriad of teaching methodologies along the way.
Neil Dsouza, Co-founder of Zaya Learning Labs, met Aarti at a conference in Mumbai and was inspired by her story. He wanted to implement Zaya’s program at her center and started a search for the right donor. Eventually Vision Global Empowerment stepped in to help, and they are sponsoring the program for Sakhi for 2 years.
Aarti has been running Zaya’s program for 4 months now, and her students are now more excited than ever to come to class. When we asked Aarti about her experience with Zaya, she said, with a big smile on her face, ”My students are more engaged and excited in the classroom. They never used to like mathematics, but now they can do it the whole day. They were good in simple addition and subtraction but they were struggling in addition and subtraction with borrowing. Since we started the Zaya program, they are able to solve addition and subtraction with borrowing problems easily. The immediate positive feedback on the tablet motivates the children to learn more. Now they are never bored in the classroom. On holidays they miss Zaya class, and I have seen improvement in their attendance too.”
“Zaya has always been supportive during the implementation of the program. I didn’t know how to use tablets but their training and regular follow-ups helped us reach this point,” Aarti said.
It is amazing and inspirational to see Aarti’s determination towards girls education in India. We at Zaya would like to congratulate her on receiving this award and wish her good luck for her future endeavors.
All information and photos shared with permission from Aarti Naik.
