Sahjani Shiksha Kendra
Adult education is used interchangeably with vocational training or functional literacy, and fewer initiatives integrate women’s empowerment and social transformation within their educational work. Our vision involved and still continues to comprise of enabling greater autonomy for the local women’s leadership, implementing women-centred literacy strategies, and women’s access to entitlements and their rights. Nirantar initiated Sahjani Shiksha Kendra (SSK) in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2002. ‘Sahjani’ in the local language means one who supports women. Nirantar’s SSK programme was broadly aimed at empowering women and adolescent girls through literacy and education, by linking their lived realities to its educational initiatives.
The program activities constituted of literacy centres, residential camps, village-level camps, creation of resource material for neo-literate women and girls, and Janishala, a residential learning space for adolescent Dalit and Tribal girls.In 2013, SSK was registered as an autonomous organisation and Nirantar came into the role of a resource organisation with the program.
Currently, SSK’s literacy and education work in Lalitpur district is spread across 175 villages, covering more than 4,500 women directly (through literacy interventions) and more than 5,500 women indirectly (through MGNREGA and Right to Education activities) belonging to the most marginalised communities including Dalits (Scheduled Castes) and Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes).
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