Creating Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs for Children in Indian Public Schools

About the Project

This project is one of the 2021 WISE Awards finalists. 

Labhya Foundation enables state governments to create & implement Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs for vulnerable children in India, at scale.

 

Context and Issue 

Over 50% of India’s population today is under the age of 25, meaning an expected 500 million people entering the workforce in the next 15 years. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this enormous potential will not be relished, with the public education system not readying the youth with the skills needed to succeed in this fast-changing world. With 236 million children enrolled in the public education system today, most living on less than $2 a day, there is an urgent need to reimagine the types of skills our children need.

 

Solution and Impact

To solve this, Labhya Foundation partners with governments, multilateral organisations & nonprofits to co-create scalable & contextual SEL programs for vulnerable children across public education systems. Labhya provides end-to-end support to its partners. Our support includes curriculum, teacher capacity building and monitoring & evaluation.

This has translated into a daily mandatory 30-minute class integrated across 20,000 public schools of India, where children learn and practice social and emotional skills like mindfulness, relationship building, action-orientation, goal setting and emotion control. In the past 4 years, Labhya’s programs have enabled significant behavioural changes among students and positively shifted student-teacher relationships.

Labhya has co-created & is ensuring effective implementation of the world’s largest SEL & India’s first programs namely ‘Happiness Curriculum’ & ‘Anandam Pathyacharya’ with Governments of Delhi & Uttarakhand respectively. Labhya impacts 2 Million+ vulnerable children across 2 states through our government partnerships.

Labhya has been supported and recognised globally for its pathbreaking programs for children. Labhya has received the Commonwealth Youth Award, won Harvard University’s Social Impact Fellowship Fund, and has been incubated by N/Core, India’s leading nonprofit incubator. Further, Labhya’s programs have been recognised by Harvard University’s International Education Week 2020, Nasdaq, Teach For All and international media. Labhya’s programs have also been visited by eminent personalities such as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

 

Future Developments 

In the coming years their goal is to serve 7 Million vulnerable children across India  and to partner with at least 2 more state governments to replicate and scale their program . They hope to capacitate existing and upcoming government partners to conduct state-wide student-level SEL assessments for all children who are a part of their programs.

May 05, 2021 (last update 06-30-2022)