Pratham activities started with a strong urban focus to make an impact in Chennai. However, due to frequent and effective interactions with our partner groups in Tamil Nadu, we were exposed to the necessity of such initiatives in rural blocks of Tamil Nadu. It was clear that children in the rural areas had very little exposure to good reading material, access to pre-school or any means to alternative ways of learning. Hence, in Pratham Tamil Nadu, a strong need was felt to support education programmes like pre-schools, remedial classes and libraries in rural districts of Tamil Nadu, in addition to programmes in urban areas.

In Tamil Nadu, Pratham works in close collaboration with it’s affiliates AID India and Vidyarambam Trust. While Vidyarambam Trust is responsible for undertaking the direct programs in the rural areas of the state, AID India implements the libraries and Read India campaign.

Read India: We are running the Read India program with AID India in 13 districts. As part of this, the ‘Padippum Inikkum’ reading campaign was run in 8,621 schools in these districts last year. Teachers have responded very well to the program and reading levels have improved by 12.8% overall. The program is being implemented through a strong volunteer base and through strong district level collaborations with the district education officers. In almost all the districts, school teachers implemented a reading class daily for one hour during school time. This was supported by evening classes which were run by volunteers in the community for children who could not even identify letters.

Direct Programs: in Tamil Nadu we undertake our direct programs in the rural areas through Vidyarambam Trust.   The key programs undertaken include the Balwadis, Libraries and Learning support classes.  The English Progranm has also been piloted in some of the districts and is now being scaled up