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http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/how-to-help-durga-and-girls-like-her/#more-30812

‘Through mutual friends, I was introduced to the lovely Urvashi Nair and her family. Urvashi lives in Delhi, and works with IIMPACT, an NGO dedicated to providing primary education to underprivileged girls in rural parts of India. IIMPACT operates learning centers in remote rural villages, and gives girls who would not otherwise be in school the opportunity to receive a high-quality education. Urvashi was visiting some learning centers near Jaipur, and invited me along. Upon my arrival, I was absolutely blown away. Despite being a mere 50km outside a major city, it was as if we had gone back in time. The villagers were mostly subsistence farmers, and lived in small huts, some of which were made of mud. Our arrival was feted by a council of village elders. The elders explained how proud they were of the girls, and how happy they were to have a learning center in their village. The students were a mix of 30 girls between the ages of six and fourteen. They learn how to read and write, basic arithmetic, and environmental science. The girls proudly reeled off songs, performed long division, and counted to ten in English at the top of their lungs. Without the IIMPACT learning centers, none of these girls would have been in school. Furthermore, IIMPACT currently educates over 17,000 girls throughout India. I’d encourage you to find out more at http://www.iimpact.net. I am not prone to sentimentality, but it was an incredibly moving experience.’

With warm regards from Austria,

Susanna Haagen
Respontour
Austria

Being faced with such a case for the first time IIMPACT had to counsel both her parents and her in-laws about the negatives of marrying at such a young age and the effects it would have on their daughter. It took a while but the team finally convinced them all about the importance of educating each of their daughters. Sahanara’s parents were persuaded to send Sahanara as well as their other daughters to school. They have agreed that they will not get their younger daughters married at such an early age.

The parents and in-laws were shown the school and introduced to the way in which daily classes were conducted. They were encouraged by what they saw.

Today Sahanara has been coming to the centre for the past year and is at present studying in class II. Her younger sisters will soon be joining Sahanara at the IIMPACT learning centre.

Simili was the biggest challenge of all. We had to trek a long way on the rough terrain. I struggled but did not give up because I saw women and children walking the same way with big loads on their heads and children on their hips. I had to carry only myself. The villagers were very happy to see a “city person” who had taken the trouble of coming to see them all the way. They wanted us to stay back for the night, have dinner, etc. I took leave of them with the promise that I would come back soon to be their guest. We had more centers to see!
Simili has almost 40 girls enrolled in the center and a good number waiting to enroll. I request IIMPACT to open one more center at Simili at the earliest.
At Patipanka the girls greeted us with a welcome song composed by their teacher. The girls are very talented; most of them have such lovely voices.
Our last visit was Pudkima where a young girl rendered a song in Oriya – a prayer to the Lord to help her through the “sansar sagar”. The song continues to haunt me – the lyrics so devotional and her voice so divine. As I walked out of the center I wonder what the future had in store for the girl – whether the Lord will help her sail through or not. But then He has sent IIMPACT to them and the girls have reasons to look forward to a better tomorrow.

I along with Mrs Nirmala Tandon and Shri P Bhatt Co-coordinator paid a visit to the Chandoli Learning Centre on the forenoon of Wednesday, Dec 7, 2011..
During some two hours that I spent at the Centre, I took the opportunity of interacting with the children, and members of the local community, both men and women, some of whom were the parents or elders of the children at the Centre. The children enrolled numbered 30, 10 of whom are at class 2 level, as many as 17 at class 3 level and 3 at class 4 level who are shortly going to move up to Class 5 ( the highest class up to which a Learning Centre provides education). The attendance on the day of my visit, was almost cent per cent.

While approaching the children, I had in mind some of the observations on the state of literacy in India, as reported in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010 which I had occasion to go through., a few days earlier. According to this report while many children in standard I and II were incapable of reading letters , majority of children in Class V could read only Class II level text.
Measured on this scale, I was pleased to find that the children of Chandoli Centre were far above the all- India levels. Besides, education, I had tried to assess their general awareness , learning of arts and crafts and their interest in music and poetry. In all these areas there was reason for satisfaction . I found them cheerful and friendly, and not shy and withdrawing They presented to me some of the products of the crafts they had learnt. All appeared to be in good health. My only message to them and the organizes is to “keep it up” and improve further
My interaction with a number of village elders , M/s Fakru, Budh Singh, Jammi Khan , Juharu, Hakam, Israj and Ms Narmada, Amridi, Akbari, Saliman was equally rewarding. They appeared very much satisfied with the education as well as personality building of their children at the learning centre. The position , they told me was in severe contrast with the adjoining government schools which suffered form the time old problem of teacher not turning up and often not teaching even when present . Another aspect which I noticed to my great satisfaction that there was complete harmony among children of different communities and stratas of society

While departing, I presented to the Centre a number of general books and learning aids worth Rs 25,000/- gifted by my daughter Dr (Mrs) Shalini Bansil. These can be used to create a nucleus of a Library for the use not only of the children of Centre but the children and even adults of the entire Village. I am sure the management of the Centre would carefully preserve them and make optimum use of them for the inhabitants of Chandoli

R C Mody
Dec 15,2011

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           The first batch of 75 IIMPACT girls had passed Class 5 in 2006 and joined formal schools from Class 6. This number has gone up in successive years. This year 762 girls have passed and a majority of them have joined Class 6, a new milestone for IIMPACT. The number of girls who have successfully completed Class 5 from IIMPACT centres has crossed 1541. About 1189 of them are successfully continuing in formal education, a major landmark for IIMPACT as well as for the communities where we work. Many previously out-of-school girls are now at secondary, senior secondary and even at college levels  -performing well wherever they are…

CLASS 5 RESULTS 2011
100% SUCCESS RATE

A notable increase of 407 girls appearing for the Class 5 Board Exams this year: 471 from Alwar, Rajasthan and 304 from Mehmoodabad, Uttar Pradesh.

GIRLS WHO GRADUATED FROM IIMPACT