Empower Young Women to be Leaders, India

• 85 students were provided college scholarships
• 30 students attended regular Spoken English classes and its final exam.
• 17 students attended an advanced course on Tally (accounting software) conducted in partnership with Vision Trust.
• Students led Technology club, Financial club (famiy budgeting), Dance and Sports Club, Language Club (ex. tamil poetry) -  mostly online. They were well attended and enjoyed.  
• Workshops were held: 52 students attended "Child Marriage and Child Labour, coordinated by the ChildLine and 43 students attended "Women Entrepreneurship" led by an area nutritionist and a business woman for 15 years. 

Cerena Foundation Reports:

Online and inperson workshops and clubs were conducted. 

• Of the 120 students, 35 students were found in need of the mobile data scholarships to attend online Academy activities
• Scholarships were provided to area colleges
• A four session study skills workshops were held online. The students submitted their assignments through Google Classroom
• 32 students attended weekly book club (divided into four groups) and enjoyed reading fiction, short stories, biographies and autobiographies, mystery and advenure. Each were provided new books. They learned how to tell stories in many of the sessions.
• Mentors conducted home visits to support the students and their families in this time of Covid-19. Techniques for staying safe were shared.
• Students grew kitchen gardens for their families. 

Women’s Education Project and Aarti Home, in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, India have partnered since 2012 to offer WEP’s I Am a Leader curriculum, to the Aarti Home residents. October 2020 - January 2021, WEP provided our newly revised Leadership Academy, to 30 Aarti students. Aarti decided to form an entrepreneurial focus teaching the students skills in pottery, jewelry making, and professional photography. A second batch began in March 2021.  

The students met daily 6 days a week attending alongside the entrepreneurial classes, courses in life skills, communication, technology and community engagement (the ripple effect). 

RECENT UPDATES

• Before the Covid pandemic, Sowmika, who will be completing the WEP Leadership Academy in February, herself abandoned as a baby, worked in area villages (some of the poorest villages of Andhra Pradesh) to prevent over 60 feticides and enroll 100s of girls into school. For this, Sowmika was selected to be an Ananta Aspen Institute Emerging Leader. 
• A teacher, who provides English and life skills courses, reports that “the students are showing considerable progress in their ability to express themselves in English. The focus this month has been on revision of topics taught. As their vocabulary increases, the students are more curious to know the meanings of new words that they come across.” 
• In October, the students presented the ancient art form of Rangoli to a group of Microsoft employees, forming the start of WEP’s Corporate Connect program - an exchange between employees and students.