An article in the online magazine The Indus Parent highlights the good work being done by Digital Study Hall – the outreach arm of the Study Hall Educational Foundation. Have a read.
Prof. Glynda A. Hull from the University of California, Berkeley along with her team comprising John Scott, Jessica Adams, Devanshi Unadkat and Dhruv visited Study Hall Educational Foundation in connection with the ‘Write4Change: Online Global Writing Community for Youth Online’ research project which aims to learn about how educators and students create and participate in online writing communities and write for social change. The project also aims to know how visualizing data could help students think about their writing and themselves as writers in new ways.
The participants from Study Hall and Prerna schools were put into 4 groups and they were given access to 360 Virtual Reality camera equipment. The students were acclimatized to the use of the new technology. They confabulated about the social issues or themes to weave their stories around. Thereafter they captured the cityscape with their lens along with their escort teachers. Then they thought about the music, subtitles, narration and special effects to complement their visuals. The resultant videos were about the life of the underprivileged girls in Prerna school, the sights and sounds from the culture, history and cuisine of Lucknow, Women Empowerment and the Socio-cultural diversity of India.
The team from Berkeley was quite impressed with the final outcome and lauded their efforts. They congratulated them for their proactive participation and involvement in all stages of film-making. It was teamwork all through and the efforts shone in every aspect of the videos.
It was a mutually enriching interaction and the students of SHEF in particular Study Hall and Prerna learnt how to use the new technique and compared it with the existing 180-camera technology used currently by them. The use of multi-modal approach was a unique experience.
We hope that this ongoing project would provide access to new technology and an interface with global student communities to share, learn and grow together.
Write4Change: Online Global Writing Community for Youth Online
How do you empower women? It starts with educating young boys, says Dr. Urvashi Sahni of Study Hall Educational Foundation and the India Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2017.
The Award was conferred by Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India in the presence of over 300 participants at a high-profile gathering in New Delhi today night.
Urvashi Sahni was awarded for contribution in the field of education that includes, empowers and builds leaders among disadvantaged girls. Aided by technology, policy push and partnerships with the Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh Govt., SHEF has scaled its model of education to 900 Govt. schools. It has trained 5000 teachers and impacted 1,50,000 girls directly and 2,70,000 girls indirectly in the hotbeds of poverty and gender discrimination.
Glimpses of The Book Launch function of Dr. Urvashi Sahni’s book “Reaching for the Sky” at Sesame Workshop, 1900 Broadway, New York, NY held on the 20th Sept’ 2017. A momentous day for all the members of Study Hall family.
The Satguru project had organised a project RALLY FOR RIVERS to create awareness among the general public and inspire them to protect rivers on 1st Sept 2017.It was an initiative for a noble cause.Our school students also participated actively in this rally and marched with banners and posters, highlighting the urgent need to save rivers.
Transforming the Lives of Marginalized Girls in Patriarchal Societies
Since 2003 a privately funded high school has provided desperately needed education for girls from impoverished families in Lucknow, the capital and largest city in Uttar Pradesh, in northeast India. Urvashi Sahni, the founder of Prerna Girls School, tells the stories of how the school has changed the lives of more than 5,000 girls and their families. Most important, this book tells those stories from the perspectives of the girls themselves, rather than through a remote academic perspective.
The book focuses on how gender equality can be achieved in a patriarchal society through education. It shows how girls learn to be equal and autonomous persons in school as part of their official curriculum and how they use this learning to transform their lives and those of their families. The book’s central argument is that education can be truly transformative if it addresses the everyday reality of girls’ lives and responds to their special needs and challenges with respect and care.
Although Reaching for the Sky describes just one relatively small school in one corner of India, the book’s message and the stories it tells will interest anyone concerned about the necessity of girls’ education, especially in developing countries. The lives of the girls at Prerna Girls School are largely representative of those of millions of girls living in poor contexts in countries where patriarchal structures and norms prevail.
BOOK DETAILS
Reaching for the Sky: Empowering Girls Through Education Kindle Edition Click here
The Study Hall School as part of the ongoing India’s Daughters Campaign 2017, organised an open discussion on ‘Child Marriage is a form of domestic violence’ on Thursday. Besides Study Hall School, students from Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidlaya (Bakshi Ka Talab), Prerna Girls School and Vidyasthali also participated in the discussion.