Between 2004 and 2005 Nirantar coordinated and implemented a south Asia-level training and research project in collaboration with Uppingham Seminars (UK) and the Asia Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE). The project trained practitioners on using ethnographic approaches to research community-level literacy and numeracy practices and then explored ways in which the research findings could feed into developing locally contextualised literacy and numeracy material. Read Exploring the Everyday for an account of the project.

As part of this project a team comprising Nirantar members and facilitators from Sahajani Shikshan Kendra carried out two small research projects – Mapping the Literacy Environment in Two Villages in Uttar Pradesh and Understanding Numeracy Practices Around Weights. The studies were insightful and enabled us to see more precisely, the ways in which literacy and numeracy were used in the community, especially women and we are presently using this to develop educational material for our field programme in Lalitpur.