When Aarti Naik from the Indian NGO Sakhi reached out to us to help slum girls in Mumbai develop their English pronunciation abilities through the COVID-19 crisis, we instantly knew we had to help. It was an important educational project, which also aligned with the vision of our MOOC.
With the MOOC, we wanted to offer inclusive education and contribute to spoken English diversity and development. It is a part of the SEEK Asia campaign, which demonstrates its value for diverse native language users across six APAC regions within Asia: Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Sakhi, a female friend in Hindi, aims to provide access to better educational opportunities and decent livelihood alternatives for girls in slums and rural areas in India. The MOOC's collaboration with Sakhi ensures that the girls at Sakhi have full and permanent access to the MOOC's upgraded resources reserved for paid participants of the FutureLearn platform. Along with the material and exercises, the girls also can reach out to the VU mentors for guidance and support.
Initially, Rewa and Prerna, coordinators from Sakhi, guided the girls through the course. As these new aids were challenging to master, extra attention was given through VU mentors to coach and develop these young participants. Eventually, these girls' educational development contributed to the - Audio Storytelling Project, India, in which they created and shared more than 190 audio stories to 5000 girls and their family members, and 500 teachers encouraging and inspiring them to permit girls to learn and grow.
It is important to note that the world is not on track to meet 2030 education targets. Before the coronavirus crisis, projections showed that more than 200 million children would be out of school, and only 60 percent of young people would be completing upper secondary education in 2030. We need to do much more. The MOOC is one way in which we try to provide quality English language education to students who cannot otherwise receive it.
Laura Rupp and Amrita Das