Ektara
VISION of EKTARA:
Transforming Vulnerable Communities through Education
MISSION of EKTARA:
Educate, Engage and Empower girls and women to become agents of change.
Ek Tara is a registered Trust that works with girls and women from the largest slum communities in Kolkata, India. Our core projects on Education, Health- Hygiene- Nutrition, Community Engagement and Skill building engage the most vulnerable girls and women from these slums.
We, at Ek Tara, believe in giving opportunities and choices to children and helping them grow the way they would like to, and in empowering them to chart their own futures. We help build resilience and inculcate knowledge by being engaged and being supportive of them in their learning journey by:
- Providing quality English medium education- to make all students well-rounded, application driven and future-ready individuals.
- Giving equal importance to holistic development by stressing on Extra Curricular Activities, Social- Emotional Learning.
- Preparing them to be future ready with knowledge and practice of 21st century skills (through digital literacy, stem learning, civic literacy etc)
- Make families partners as opposed to beneficiaries by building their capacities.
- Preparing the students to be agents of change
- Integrating all programmes with the UN SDG’s ( with focus on 4 and 10).
The families of our children are all engaged as daily wage earners whose entire life had been turned upside down by the Pandemic. Their problems were compounded by Cyclone Amphan which hit the city in May 2020. Since then these families have been relegated to the lowest position possible with girls and women being the worst affected. Through the pandemic Ek Tara continued to provide access to education inspite of the digital divide, distributing food rations and other essentials to ensure these families could live with dignity and the children continued to learn.
Ek Tara currently reaches out to 1300 children and women through its programmes on Education and Skill building. From Janaury 2021, Ek Tara will launch its new state-of-the-art education facility which will house its projects on Early Childhood Learnings, Primary and Middle School Sections, School Support projects from senior school students, Digital learning with focus on STEM learning, Extracurricular Activities with focus on Reading, Sports and Arts. This school will reach out to 2500 children in the next 3 years. For more details on Ek Tara please refer to the attached introductory note and our website:
www.ektara.org.in
Profile of Founder
Ms. Namrata Sureka is the Co-Founder of ‘Ek Tara’, facilitating the women, girls and children of the Slum areas of Topsia&Tiljala in Kolkata, providing Education & Livelihood skills to empower them to be self sufficient. Ex-Trustee of ‘Anantara’ and ‘Padatik ‘ – initiatives promoting Indian cultural heritage through events in the form of Performing Arts like Dance, Theatre, Music &Art. She has also been the President in 2017-18 of the ‘Ladies Study Group’, a 50 yr old ladies organization , set up by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, to encourage women to mobilize their talent and help them participate in issues related to social development.
Ms. Vinita Saraf has a strong commitment to creating educated youths, from first generation learners. She has designed high quality, cost effective and comprehensive services for the children from marginalized backgrounds, using an eclectic approach tailored to the unique needs of every individual. She has worked on enhancing self-esteem and social skills via education among the young adults in the largest slum area of Eastern India.
With a BSc Honors in Geography from Calcutta University, a Degree in Interior Design from Sheffield School of Design, New York, a Degree in both Spanish and German, she started her career as an Interior Designer. Later after having travelled extensively she started her own travel concern, ‘Creative Escapes’ and specialized in curating holidays with a difference for Women Groups. While running these enterprises successfully, she walked into the social sector as a result of her real life experiences of daily interaction with different communities.
Having been on the Board of an NGO working against Trafficking, both Ms. Saraf and Ms. Surekarealised that that the city’s poorest and vulnerable urban communities can flourish if its girls and women are equipped to drive change – in their own lives, families, and community. What started as an informal crèche in 2011 with a handful of women and children, Ek Tara has grown into the area’s most reputed and only English medium pre-primary, primary and middle school project for girls, with a range of support activities, all of which help in arriving at the comprehensive development of each child. In keeping with Ek Tara’s aim to uplift communities, the NGO also runs a vocational training unit for mothers and older girls who can gain employable skills and also sell their products under the social enterprise and its brand Ek Tara Creates
Field of Work (eg. Child education, women empowerment, etc)
Education with focus on the girl child,
Access to high quality English medium education to those who cannot afford it,
Skilling and capacity building of women for economic independence and better quality of life.
Website Link