How we will utilise these books

India is home to the largest number of illiterate women in the world (over 200 million ) with a female literacy rate of 61% and 3 million eligible girls being out-of-school. Gender discrimination is more severe in rural areas of the country, where girls are systemically kept out of school and deprived of the joys and power of education. With a focus on enrollment, retention and learning, Educate Girls aims to provide quality education for all under-served and marginalized girls by leveraging government and community resources. With operations in nine districts in Rajasthan, and one in Madhya Pradesh, Educate Girls currently implements its programs in over 12,000 schools in over 8,000 villages across India. In the last eight years, Educate Girls has enrolled over 120,000 girls and over 600,000 children have demonstrated improved learning outcomes. We received a wonderful response from children last year, who not only enjoyed reading, but also showed improved learning outcomes. This year we aim to raise enough funds to procure 5,000 books for 15,000 children across 500 schools! Our community volunteers called Team Balika will use the books to complement our activity-based pedagogy.