Mansi is the Vice President, Social Initiatives at BYJU’S and has been with the organisation for close to 2 years. She is responsible for and heads the company’s social impact and CSR initiatives. With a vision to democratise education and ensure that every child gets an opportunity to learn, the social impact team at BYJU’S under Mansi’s leadership is consistently empowering children in the most remote geographies and underserved communities.
Education for All initiative started with the aim to democratize education by making digital learning and quality education accessible to children across all economic backgrounds. Furthering this mission, BYJU’S has partnered with 55 NGOs across 23 states in India.
One such success story is its partnership with Vadham India to empower children of tea estate workers through digital learning. BYJU’S joined forces with NGO – CRY, Child in Need Institute (CINI), and VAHDAM India, the premium source-to-consumer tea brand, to launch the TEAch Me Project. Today, more than 10,000 children across tea estates have been positively impacted in the states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
In an conversation with the India CSR; Mansi, Vice President, Social Initiatives, BYJU’S, highlights company CSR philosophy, culture and recent innovations. Following are the excerpts of the interaction:
What is your mission behind the ‘Education for All’ initiative?
BYJU’S Education for All initiative aims to democratize education by making digital learning and quality education accessible to children across all economic backgrounds by extending BYJU’S App licenses to children of school-going age. Last year when the pandemic hit us, many children were deprived of basic education because of schools being shut and social distancing norms being practiced. While technology rose to the occasion to provide industries with viable solutions to meet the need of the hour, there were pockets of the country where there was no access to education. With Education for All initiative, we want to empower children across the country, even those in remote areas through our tech-enabled learning programs.
What are some of the key initiatives that you have taken as a part of your larger ‘Education for All’ Initiative?
We, constantly work to make learning accessible, engaging, effective, meaningful, and personalised for everyone. With our social impact initiative – Education for all, we want to continue exploring and leveraging technology to bring about positive systemic changes in education. To further this mission, we have also partnered with 55 NGOs across 23 states in India.
One such extremely successful initiative is with Vahdam India to empower children of tea estate workers through digital learning. As the first step towards making remote learning a reality for children in inaccessible regions, we joined hands with the NGO – CRY, Child in Need Institute (CINI), and VAHDAM® India, the premium source-to-consumer tea brand, to launch the TEAch Me®Project. This initiative was focused to bring the children of the tea plantation workers in Darjeeling, who had no access to digital learning during the pandemic, up to speed with the right infrastructure and guidance. Children in these regions had challenges such as the harsh terrain, difficult living conditions, unforgiving weather, and poor accessibility, and on top of that no access to quality education due to the pandemic. In the last few months of the pandemic, however, these children have received quality educational content – something similar to what a child in a metro city would get. More than 10,000 children have been impacted in the states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
Additionally, under the initiative, we have reached out to children across the country through free digital BYJU’S courses. Most of these children are in rural areas where they have had no access to education during the pandemic. Our focus is to help out school girls in rural areas, children from weaker socio-economic backgrounds, remote geographies and tribal areas, and school children in urban slums. One of the other social impact initiatives is the BYJU’S launched the ‘BYJU’S Give’ initiative that focuses on a collection of old devices (smartphones, laptops, and tablets), to lead equal and quality learning for every child as well as addressing another critical area that includes responsible recycling of old tech. Under this initiative, BYJU’S refurbishes old devices, installs the BYJU’S content to ensure underprivileged children continue to learn even during the pandemic.
Why did you choose to collaborate with Vahdam India as your partner? Who are some other partners for this program?
We endeavor to bridge a gap between the educational and digital divide, and making quality learning accessible to children even in the underserved areas. To accomplish this, we signed up MOUs (memorandum of understanding) with mission-aligned partners such as The American India Foundation (AIF), Magic Bus, Save the Children, United Way, Akshay Patra, Isha Vidyalaya, CRY Foundation, Ramakrishna Mission Schools, Idea Foundation, etc and one of them was VAHDAM® India. This partnership is one of many more to come and we wish to continue working with like-minded and renowned partners on this journey to make digital learning accessible and inclusive.
How are you ensuring the learning of less privileged children?
Under the TEAch Me®Project in partnership with Vahdam, we reached out to approximately 65 large tea estates, amongst other smaller ones in various regions of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. We have issued around 6000 active streaming licenses and 10 learning boxes to be used in learning centers for group learning, where each Android box is expected to serve a class size of approximately 50-60 children for each grade. These Android boxes would be used in the master canteens of the tea estates, one box will be used by approximately 400 children. Combining these numbers, we’d be serving close to more than 10,000 children in these tea estates.
Additionally, as mentioned earlier, under the BYJU’S Give initiative, we encourage citizens to donate their old or unused smart devices, which are refurbished and powered with BYJU’S content and distributed to children with no access to online education.
What will be the target of these associations and how many children have benefited from this initiative to date?
We strongly believe that education plays a defining role in growing economies and education individuals hold the power to change the world. With these partnerships, we are aiming towards a single mission of providing enriching and quality learning experiences to children everywhere. We strive to provide equal and good quality education which is deserved by all students despite economic differences or geographical location.
Rolled out in November 2020, the Education for All initiative has impacted around 250000 children pan India, including remote locations like Gomtee, Rohini, Bawana, Nagapattinam, and so on. Our mission is to empower 5 million children from underserved communities by 2025.
