THE CHALLENGES   There are many lacunae that have long bothered India when it comes to education, teacher training and classroom materials or good books - fiction and poetry and good old tales of fantasy and imagination. We all know that quality reading materials are as important - if not more so - for children who have had no access to books and hence find reading laborious and difficult; as important as quality education. And it is these very children to whom, India has not been able to provide quality.  And gender parity! Our girls lag behind boys when we look at children from nonliterate families. But ...

In the last 18 years of innovative work, Katha has reached out to nearly 350,000 beneficiaries. Today, some 7000 Children are attending different Katha Schools every year. And the performance, attendance, retention levels of our children stands close to private school figures.

Some statistics of interest. Since we started tracking, in 1995,

§         84,400 Children have been weaned away from labour

§         3500 children have passed their School leaving/Secondary School examinations,

§         11,500 students have passed their Katha Computer Certification tests

§         More than 1200 teachers of public schools, government schools as well as private Schools trained in different parts of the country. Nearly 250 teachers have been trained under the Katha in-service teacher’s training programme

§         4000 Community women associated with Katha as Ma Mandal members

Katha’s Schools on Wheels touch the lives of more than 800 street children in Delhi. Started in 2001, it was one of the first initiat ives in  the country to take the mountain to Mohammad! Today,

Bow Wow! Books on Wheels, Workshops on Wheels. a unique programme of Katha started in 20 JJ clusters as an inducement programme through the Reading is Fun! workshops conducted on two Saturdays of every month. This led to the establishment of the Ten Rupee Bookshops.

Early Childhood Centres. With secure funding in hand now, the innovative ECD programme that includes work with pregnant and lactating mothers, womb stories to lap-time stories and other fun interventions that will help keep children in schools. These centres will set base in 50 slums and have 3000 children enrolled by end 2008.

The ECD work also envisages, over the next three years:

•         BOOKS. 36 special books for toddlers and infants. A first-of-its-kind initiative for India

•         RESEARCH Studying the impact of early childhood intervention in keeping children in school, happily! And SURVEYS. On reading habits in children

Katha-Lisu Schools.Katha also helps the Lisu tribal people educate their children in the Katha-Lisu Schools, situated in Arunachal Pradesh on the India-Myanmar border, in Arunachal Pradesh.

Katha KHAZANA . A learning centre that works with and in a large slum cluster in Delhi . Starting in 1990 with 5 children, we today have 1200 children. Many of the children, working to support a family in many case, have stayed with us and now are in colleges and in gainful employment. With a special curriculum and syllabi that is innovative and relevant with a pedagogy to match. Straddling the democratic education and education for democracy spaces, the shifting of emphasis from the Me to the We, from mass cultures to critical thinking cultures, from passive tolerance to active tolerance, and which shapes and is shaped by the power of story, storytelling and individual dynamism for the larger good. Katha Khazana has three main components - the children's initiatives, those for women and the community programmes.

KATHASHALA . The Katha Public School . Creche, preschool, junior and high school. With --

Katha Student Support Centre . For the nearly 6,000 children who have moved from our centre to formal schools and other students in the community. Remedials and tutorials mainly.

Katha School of Entrepreneurship . Entrepreneurship, leadership. Job shadowing, placement, intensive and professional learning spaces. Started in 1995.

KITES . Katha Information Technology and eCommerce School . Started in 2000, it hones Katha's work in the community, and strengthens this further through IT tools.