· Scheme to benefit underprivileged students from Satya Bharti Schools with college level scholarship grants
· Over 20,000 students will benefit from the college scholarship scheme
· Bharti Foundation has committed an annual grant of Rs. 5 Crores towards this initiative, which will be built up in a phased manner
New Delhi, 12 January 2017: Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises, has announced the Satya Bharti Scholarship Scheme to aid the continued education of underprivileged children studying in 254 Satya Bharti Schools located in the rural heartlands of six states across India. Mr. Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Foundation made this announcement on the occasion of the 25th death anniversary of Shri Sat Paul Mittal, renowned Parliamentarian and social reformer from Punjab.
Under this initiative, Bharti Foundation will provide Scholarships to Class XII students, with minimum cut-off marks, to finish their vocational/college education. Details of the Scholarship schemes will be finalised shortly.
The Foundation has committed an annual grant of Rs. 5 Crore which will be built up in a phased manner.
While announcing the Scholarship Scheme, Mr Rakesh Bharti Mittal said, “Economic deprivation is the biggest reason for high school dropout rate and lower level of college enrolment in India. I am delighted that Bharti Foundation has taken this bold initiative to help Satya Bharti School students continue their college education uninhibited by their underprivileged background. The scholarships will further deepen the impact of our school education programmes and usher in sustainable change in the lives of our students.”
The Satya Bharti School Program was established in 2006 to bridge the gap in quality education across rural India. Especially focused on girls, the holistic development approach of the Program supports the vision of empowering underprivileged children and young people of the country to realise their potential.
About Bharti Foundation:
Bharti Foundation was set up in the year 2000 as the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises. It implements and supports programs in the field of primary, elementary, senior secondary and higher education through the Satya Bharti School Program as well as Government School interventions under its Satya Bharti Quality Support Program and Satya Bharti Learning Centre Program. This year the Foundation has completed 10 successful years of its flagship initiative – the Satya Bharti School Program.
In addition to its primary focus area of education, the Foundation initiated ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ in 2014, to improve sanitation facilities in rural Ludhiana and ‘Nyaya Bharti’ in 2015 to provide legal and financial assistance to deserving underprivileged under-trials languishing in jails across the country for petty offences.
Bharti Foundation has till date touched the lives of nearly 1,80,000 students, through 1,500 schools/centres, across 12 Indian states, engaging 4,500 teachers through its initiatives in the education sector. In addition, our programs have impacted over 1 million community members across rural India. These programs have already been recognized as one of the largest private enterprise initiatives of the country in this sector. Satya Bharti Abhiyan has also achieved the distinction of having delivered over 17,500 household toilets, directly benefitting more than 86,000 beneficiaries in over 1000 villages of Ludhiana. The Abhiyan has entered phase II of implementation by extending its footprint in the urban areas of Ludhiana. This is intended to support the District Administration’s initiative of declaring Ludhiana open defecation free.
Initiatives:
Ø The Satya Bharti School Program:
The Satya Bharti School Program is the flagship program of Bharti Foundation. This rural education initiative provides free quality education to underprivileged children, with a special focus on the girl child. The program envisions transforming students into educated, confident, responsible and self-reliant employable citizens of India with a deep sense of commitment to their society. The program’s reach is multi-pronged, encouraging active involvement of the rural community, parents of students and like-minded organizations working in the field of education in India. Making a lasting and sustainable impact on the community where schools are present and finding innovative solutions, through its primary and senior secondary schools, to create replicable and scalable components in the program ensures delivery of quality education. The Satya Bharti School program is being implemented with the intent to arrive at replicable and scalable components of quality education which may be adapted by the Government and other like-minded organizations. Reaching out to thousands of underprivileged children, the program, through its focus on holistic development, aims to bring forth a new generation of citizens eager to usher in positive change. Currently 249 primary/elementary Schools and five senior secondary schools are operational across Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal reaching out to 43,649 children and employing 1,691 teachers. Focusing on the girl child [49% girl students] and the weaker sections of society [75% of children from SC/ST/OBC Communities], the program is one of the largest end-to-end education initiatives by a corporate group in the country.
Ø Satya Bharti Quality Support Program:
The Satya Bharti Quality Support Program is an education initiative with Government Schools. Through this program, Bharti Foundation engages the school leadership, teachers, students and communities to enhance the schooling experience and strive for excellence. The approach focuses on identifying, integrating and optimising best practices from Satya Bharti Schools with the intent of encouraging innovation, participation, ownership and facilitating a sustainable change. Currently, the program is being run in 167 Government schools directly impacting 57,224 students and 2,584 teachers across seven states.
Ø Satya Bharti Learning Centre Program:
Bharti Foundation operates a remedial/bridge courses program with aim of bridging the education gap of out of school children and mainstreaming them into regular schools. The first phase of the program was deployed in partnership with the Government of Rajasthan and has now been scaled up to Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, extending program reach to the remote blocks of all three states. Currently, 323 Education Volunteers are engaged in teaching 4,586 out of school children, of which 49% are girls, enrolled at 336* Satya Bharti Learning Centres. Till now, 21,323 children have been mainstreamed, with the total impact reaching up to 29,498 children.
* 818 centres have been closed as most of the OOSC’s in these villages have been mainstreamed (number included in overall impact); in some villages the count of OOSC’s have dropped to such a low figure that it has gone below the minimum numbers required to run a centre, as per Government norms; of these, 58 Centres were closed due to of non-availability of qualified Education Volunteers.
Ø Nyaya Bharti
'Nyaya Bharti' is one-of-its-kind corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative by Bharti Enterprises, one of India's most respected business groups. The primary objective of Nyaya Bharti is to provide aid to underprivileged undertrials who are first time accused of petty offences and require financial and legal assistance to apply for bail and release. It also extends assistance to poor convicts undergoing imprisonment for petty offences due to their inability to pay petty fine imposed by the court. Nyaya Bharti's Governing Board is headed by Justice A.S. Anand (Retired Chief Justice of India).
The Nyaya Bharti initiative aims at providing legal assistance and creating awareness about the undertrials' legal rights while complementing the legal aid work being undertaken by National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and State Legal Services Authority (SLSAs) set up under statute legislated by the Parliament.
Ø Satya Bharti Abhiyan:
Bharti Foundation has undertaken a major initiative – ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ - to improve rural household sanitation facilities in Punjab. Inspired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s call to the corporate sector in his 2014 Independence Day speech to strengthen Government’s initiative on this score, the Foundation has decided to adopt Ludhiana district – home district of the Founders - as its focus area for improvement of rural sanitation. As part of this program, the Foundation has committed an investment of INR 100 Crores over the next three years for constructing toilets in rural households lacking such facilities in over 900 villages across the district. In addition to rural household sanitation, ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ will also invest in improving sanitation facilities in Government schools in rural Ludhiana by building new toilets for girls, where no such facilities exist.
Till now, the Abhiyan has directly benefitted over 86,000 users, providing 17,628 Individual toilets across 1009 villages of Ludhiana district.
All data as of 30th November, 2016