Sikshana Foundation | Women in Engineering

1. SGEP - Sikshana's Girl Empowerment Program

Introduction

Sikshana’s Girl Empowerment Program (SGEP) is designed to empower young girls of rural backgrounds through activities that will enhance their leadership skills, general awareness, and life skills such as Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication Skills & Collaboration. The program also focuses on scholarship for education & sports, health workshops & English/Soft Skills building in underprivileged girls between the age of 15 to 24.
The goal of SGEP is to empower adolescent girls from socio-economically weak backgrounds who require comprehensive support during the critical developmental stage, where they are likely to face unique challenges in their mental and physical health. SGEP combines academic education with health education and skill building opportunities, thus empowering girls to care for themselves in all aspects of life.

Educational Scholarships:

The socio-economically backward families mostly have girls who enroll in Government Schooling systems. This makes it difficult to make ends meet as the resources are limited. This is the kind of circumstances where a girl child’s education takes a step back as the funding and support is less due to the family’s mind set which does not consider education as something of value in a girl’s life.
Sikshana has identified such girls of age group 14 to 21 and has provided conditional cash transfers, stipends and scholarships as educational funds. In cases where the education is subsidized by the Government a nominal amount is paid towards supplies and materials for the girls. This is provided to the girls on an extreme need based approach and will not be applicable to all the candidates who have been onboarded to the program.

Technical Encouragement:

SGEP gives high importance to holistic education to young girls to help them hone their skills to the best of their capabilities. With this objective, selected students pursuing professional courses (UG Level) are awarded with laptops sponsored by Dell to aid in their knowledge enhancement and further education.

Online/Offline Workshops:

SGEP facilitates effective utilization of the students' time to upscale themselves and become industry ready using online/offline workshops. It is the firm belief of SGEP that the students must not only excel academically but also acquire the necessary skills which will help in a holistic development of the young girls. Hence these students are engaged by industry experts and qualified resource personnel to develop soft skills, technical skills, life skills and employability skills.

Health Awareness

It is a well-known fact that adolescent girls go through a range of changes from hormonal, physical and emotional that lead to various health related issues and in some cases mental issues as well. There is a crucial need for the right amount of nutrition which is a basic need that will help them stay healthy, fit and physically strong for their entire lives. The girls on-boarded under the SGEP are given sufficient awareness regarding their personal health and hygiene. The students have undergone many workshops and talks which involved healthcare experts. The girls were exposed to negative effects of wrong food choices like thyroid, PCOD, Vit D and B12 deficiencies and were made aware of necessary nutrients available in their household which helps them to lead a healthy life.

Academic Support

Students of high school level receive a wide variety of academic support under SGEP. The students studying in SSLC (10th Grade in Govt. Schools) receive comprehensive support like exam readiness classes and online/offline doubt clarification sessions by experts in addition to the motivation and encouragement for them to be well prepared and appear for their board examinations confidently. Kannada and English versions of Exam Scanners designed with the support of the Department of Education having a collection of most probable questions likely to be asked in the SSLC Board Examinations have also been given to the students to help them prepare for their upcoming board examinations.
Students from lower grades undergo a unique core program of Sikshana called Project Based Learning. In this program, the students work on curriculum and community aligned projects following the basic guidelines detailed in the program input - Project Planner. This program primarily focuses on enhancement of 21st Century Skills like Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity in students.
The pandemic has caused some major changes in the academic and personal lives of the students. Face masks have literally become a physical part of individuals today. To help the girls with access to this basic amenity and to support them in keeping their learning journey uninterrupted, Sikshana has distributed cotton reusable masks to the students. A study kit including the basic stationery requirements like notebooks, pens, pencils, geometry set, erasers, sharpeners and sanitizer was also distributed to the students under the program

Sports Scholarships

Sikshana deeply believes in holistic development of any individual and an early start for this development is absolutely essential. Physical and mental health of young girls of the age 8 years and above are improved and strengthened by engaging in activities like outdoor and indoor sports. For this purpose, Sikshana has sponsored various sports equipment and indoor games to needy Govt. Schools which have high admission counts of girls.
Tournaments of various sports activities will be conducted annually with the support of Dell sponsorship and volunteers to identify and encourage the budding aspirants of rural Govt. Schools in athletics and team games. The students get an opportunity to experience the competitive atmosphere in a professional environment and get motivated to keep up the practice.

2. Women in Engineering

The representation of women vis-à-vis men in the STEM majors across the globe is significantly low though in many cases girls would have outperformed boys in academics. This may be attributed to the lack of support resulting in them not converting it into a career. Based on the survey (IIT Bombay Ref: women in engineering education in India Dr Seema - 109258) focused on analyzing the status of women in engineering it was found that women engineers are as good as male counterparts in their technical and interpersonal skills. It’s thus important that more women participate in Science and Technology as it’ll help in social and economic development of the nation.

In order to facilitate better representation of women in the STEM majors we designed the Women in Engineering (WiE) program. The key focus of the program is to create a long term sustainable and systematic impact by engaging the girls from economically weaker sections pursuing Engineering (from Govt/Private institutions). This program aims at empowering the girls through various activities which also involves engagement with industry experts that will enhance their general awareness, life, and leadership skills.
The WiE program started with 80 girls in 2020 with the support of Hitachi Energy and by 2023 the same was expanded to 200 girls in alignment with their enduring commitment to fostering diversity and inclusivity in progressive interventions and emerging technologies. Furthermore, Amadeus Software Labs Pvt. Ltd., a consistent supporter of Sikshana’s programs, has extended their support to 25 girls within the WiE program in 2023.

Team