CAP Foundation, in May 2004 with funding support from USAID/Creative Associates International Inc had initiated a one year pilot project of integrating CAP Initiatives with educators in both secular and religious schools to provide formal full time education opportunities to approx. 1000 difficult to reach children in Muslim minority communities of Musheerabad in Hyderabad and a suburban community viz., Shapoornagar.
The focus has been on strengthening and formally integrating mainstream education interventions with religious education in the current year.
Towards this, the CAP Foundation applied its proven and tested strategies in school improvement program e.g., accelerated learning for out of school children through bridge schools, learning improvement programme, teachers capacity building and parents and community involvement.
The outcomes of the program have began to be demonstrated in terms of :
Encouraged by the positive outcomes, the CAP Foundation started receiving requests from additional Madrasas to replicate the program in their Madrasas as well. USAID and CAII again came forward to support the scaling up of the program in 8-10 Madrasas. The CAP Foundation in April 2005 initiated work with 8 additional madrasas (total of 11 madrasas covering approximately 3000 children) to build on the platform of the madrasas to facilitate capacity building of the madras teachers, document the experiences & successful strategies emerging from the implementation of the initiatives for wider dissemination and impacting the difficult - to-reach children of the minority communities &disseminate and advocate the project strategies by using the existing networks of Madrasas, Board, formal education service delivery system and other key stakeholders for mainstreaming the project initiatives.
Another challenge area was that a vast majority of the 12-18 year olds still do not find the learning environment fulfilling due to the lack of tangible skills acquisition. Those who do have the ability to acquire some competencies, find it difficult to cope with the changing demands of the new economy job market which is highly competitive.
The CAP Foundation through the extension of the Project (from October 2005 to June 2006) provided 450 adolescents at risk (14-17 years) from economically disadvantaged Muslim backgrounds access to quality formal education so that they are able to obtain elementary and secondary certificates. This allowed them to have some formal education to be able to improve their employability. Secondly, strengthen the economic base of about 250 poor families by developing employability and entrepreneurship skills among the young adults (18-30 years) in new market oriented jobs that will provide assured income to the family on a sustainable basis.
In addition CAP Foundation got US$= 42312 for teachers training, teaching learning material for a group of about 80 madrasa teachers from across the State & the Conference covering about 150 members for wider dissemination ( to be completed in 3 months time which we had last week)
