ABHAS Programs

ABHAS designs innovative programs using a rights based approach and these community-based programs are closely monitored. Close contact with the children and their families is ensured through social workers, teachers and outreach workers. The underlying strategy adopted by ABHAS aims at building capacity of women and youth, empowering them to become change agents to promote education in their communities.

Since inception, we have implemented many programs covering more than 28,000 deprived urban children, especially girls residing in urban villages and adjoining slum settlements in Delhi and NOIDA. ABHAS recognises that understanding and resolving problems of children is the key to ensuring their retention and prolonged stay in school. ABHAS acts as a community resource and plays the important role of an observer, a mentor, and provides a safety net for its constituents.

Till date, ABHAS has implemented 16 Programs to promote education and best health practices among indigent communities. Our flagship Program, the ABHAS Education Program is currently in its 6th year of implementation. The Program caters to the education needs of children especially girls and helps them to join mainstream schools, continue to stay in schools and complete school education. Started in 2014, the ABHAS Education Program, provides vulnerable children age appropriate educational and life skills training with socio emotional support to enable them to cope with the school curriculum and continue schooling. In 2017, the Program was part supported by the Smile Mission Education Program. Currently, the Program is supported solely by individuals and CSR donors.

In 2018, ABHAS launched its Swabhiman Program -an initiative to empower adolescent girls and women to lead a dignified life and transform them into change agents to improve health seeking behaviour among all community members. The primary target groups of the program are married women (15 - 49 years) and adolescent girls (10 -19 years), with men and local government health agencies being the secondary target groups. The Program has covered more than 2500 families so far. Currently, the Program is supported by the Smile Foundation.

A list of programs implemented by ABHAS till date is given below:

Our Girls Education Program, identified economically backward but academically inclined adolescent girls and supported them to continue and complete schooling. Starting with 25 girls, the Program supported 200 girls studying in Government middle and secondary schools. Out of these, 162 girls completed class 12 and enrolled for higher education. More than 70% of these girls could join colleges under Delhi University for pursuing different under graduate courses are now completing their graduation from Delhi Unversity. Others have completed their nursery teacher training course and are pursuing courses from from IGNOU. 5 GEP girls were engaged by ABHAS as teachers for primary school going children.

The TEACH Program integrated education with vocational trainings and life skills for adolescent girls. The Program aimed at developing skills to enable them to transition effectively to their future roles as adults; to understand their rights and duties; and the confidence to seek and gain employment. 250 adolescent girls benefited from the program.

The Yamuna Action Plan (YAP), was a School Health and Hygiene Program conducted in 30 government schools in 13 villages in NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh supported by U.P. Jal Nigam. Under this program, children were encouraged to become members of Eco Clubs and were trained to become peer educators to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation in their own communities.

Our Community Learning Centre, inaugurated by the then Hon. Chief Minister of Delhi Smt. Shiela Dixit in Tughlakabad Village, provided IT and Marketing Skills to 300 youth from the community.

The Teach Plus Program for vulnerable children aimed at improving their learning levels, retention in school and completion of lower and upper primary school. Multi grade multi level tutoring was implemented to enhance performance levels of children in schools, with focus on Hindi, English and Math. Extracurricular activities like yoga, theatre workshops, motivational songs, classical dance were also an intrinsic part of the Program.

In 2010, under the Access to Education for Underserved Urban Children: Reaching the Unreached Program, ABHAS spread its work to other extremely marginalised and new migrant communities in urban settlements in Haryana and NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh. The need for such programs was evident from the findings of a Base Line Survey conducted by ABHAS in the year covering 5000 households in these settlements. The Survey revealed that an alarming 77% of the children in the age group 3 – 18 years were out of school. The Program focused on mainstreaming these never been to school and dropout children from impoverished backgrounds. The Educational Centres set up under the Program supported out of school vulnerable children between 6-14 years to catch up with age appropriate learning levels, enrol in schools and stay in school longer.

The ConnectEd program provided remedial education and counseling to out of school and at risk adolescents to enable them to access a quality education program, remain in school longer and eventually transition successfully into the workforce. The Program focused primarily on girls from the slum areas in New Delhi and Noida, U.P. that were made up of predominantly poor migrants from the minority and/or dalit communities where adult illiteracy was the norm, water and sanitation conditions very poor, and access to quality education and health services was limited. In fact, data from these areas suggested that only 4% of youth were in high school. The Program covered 6000 adolescents.