The Challenge We Face

Girls living in slum areas and rural villages have such low levels of literacy that they are unable to advance in school. The majority of girls in these areas cannot fluently read basic text in their local language, and their English literacy is even lower. As a result, they drop out of school early, and are unqualified for any employment that pays a living wage.
Rural families often prefer to educate sons rather than daughters, and require girls to perform more housework. In slum areas, girls are discouraged from attending school by overcrowded classrooms, unsanitary or unsafe facilities, and few female teachers. Lack of individual attention to girls at school and lack of interest in their education from the girls’ own families saps the girls’ confidence.
Without confidence in their own abilities, and lacking fluency in reading and speaking, girls do not advocate for themselves to continue their education. Once they leave school to work or marry, they are locked into a lifetime of poverty.

Our Innovative Solution

At SAKHI for Girls Education, we believe literacy is the key to advancing the education and employability of girls. A girl who can read and speak fluently in her local language and in English will believe in her abilities, and advocate to stay in school. We have developed a powerful new approach to help girls improve their literacy using mobile audio recording technology.
With our Girls Audio School, we are training adolescent girls as Reading Leaders who use audio recording and reading-while-listening to help other girls learn to read and speak fluently. Each Reading Leader assists two or three local girls to:

• Listen to a recorded story read by a native speaker, while reading the text
• Practice reading the story aloud, then record themselves reading the story
• Listen to the recording of their own voice so they can hear where they need improvement

With this simple, low-cost approach, we can rapidly expand and replicate our literacy learning model without professional teachers, classroom space, or expensive tools.

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