According to global statistics, 61% of rural girls do not attend secondary school. This is far higher than rural boys (55%), urban girls (41%) and urban boys (40%). Deficits in girls education leads to increased poverty, reduced family health, earlier marriages and pregnancies among other things. 

In this episode we celebrate Lopa Gandhi. Lopa Gandhi is the founder of Ugam Education Foundation. Ugam Education Foundation's mission is to use replicable frameworks to create model residential school for girls (KGBVs) in partnership with education systems through empowerment of people and processes to ensure girls are educated and empowered. Ugam Education currently works across multiple districts in Jharkhand. Lopa has more than 20 years of experience in the field of education. Her areas of focus have been teaching adolescents, curriculum design, HR management—including coaching, training, programme design, and evaluation. Previously, she has worked in various capacities with different NGOs like Akanksha Foundation, Kaivalya Foundation, Muktangan, Transform Initiative, Catalysts for Social Action, among others.

We speak about Lopa's journey in the development sector and her foray into founding an organisation which is working in rural India (Jharkhand). We speak about the similarities and differences in Education across different contexts like urban, rural, government and private settings. We also speak about the benefits and drawbacks of the model of Government Residential Schools for Girls (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalay - KGBV). 

Episode hosted by Venil Ali, produced by Disoriented Penguin. If you are looking to start a podcast and need some help reach out to reachus@disorientedpenguin or kanishka@disorientedpenguin. If you have feedback for the podcast, do drop us an email on [email protected] or leave us a message on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.