NavSadhana hosted “The Tara Akshar Literacy Program” from 5th -19th March 2013 and 4th – 18th April 2013, organized by Col. M.S. Ahluwalia, the Chief Project Manager, Tara Akshar, Development Alternatives, New Delhi. TARA Akshar has been funded by DFID (through its PACS Programme), Telecentre.org, Oxfam, Suzlon Foundation.
This program has run for ‘Sakshar Bharat Mission 2012’ under Ministry of HRD Govt. of India and also for Ministry of Tribal Affairs Govt. of M.P. The present training is an off-shoot of UNDP and UNISCEF. This training program is conducted under Col. M.S. Ahluwalia, the chief Project Director, with Mr. Rajiv, Mrs. Pragya and 6 others from Delhi. It is basically Training of 140 in the first batch and 160 in the second batch trainers who would be training others under this project in Mirzapur, Sant Ravidasnagar , Jaunpur and Varanasi Districts of U.P. It’s main aim is to make 20,000 women literate in a year’s time.
It is an Information Communication Technology based literacy program. It caters to individuals of age group 10- 50 years. It asserts that it makes a person literate in 49 days with minimum of reading and writing in Hindi and Arithmetic. It started in 2005 with some trials and finally launched in 2008 in 4 States: Bihar, Jharkhand, M.P. and U.P. under the poorest area of civil society (PACS). It was then sponsored by Development for International Development (DFID UK Aids)
The participants were all together 150 and 160 in the first and second batch. They were well disciplined and respectful to one another and the elders. They were eager and enthusiastic to be teachers to teach rural women to make them literate. They were highly appreciative of the healthy campus of Nav Sadhana as green, clean and serene, as well as friendly and amicable nature of the director and the staff.
