Programmes

Programmes & Impact


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Second Chance School

  • The Second Chance Schools in Mahipalpur, New Delhi and Jhalawar, Rajasthan provide education, vocational training, apprenticeship, and entrepreneurship development programmes to young adults who did not get their first chance. Its Night School is an evening programme to impart basic education and life skills training to boys who work as coolie/ labourers.
  • It is is a two-year residential and day school programme for disadvantaged boys between 18-24 years of age who did not get a first chance at education. The transformational programme aims to reintegrate young adults into social and work life in a secure, loving and stimulating environment. It is an incredibly unique and dynamic school catering to the needs of young adults coming from challenging backgrounds during which they have faced poverty, exploitation, and discrimination

AIM

Our aim is to ensure the students can stand on their feet and thrive in their social environment. This programme is geared towards helping students actualise their potential by providing a stimulating environment, peer support, individualised career plans, contextualized education, health, nutrition, and mentoring.

OUTCOME:

The students are transitioned to independent living once they start earning a minimum threshold salary. Ritinjali continues to mentor and support all the alumni of Second Chance School and has, over the years, built a robust network of students, who are economically self-reliant and doing well in their personal journeys.

LEARNING PHASES AT SECOND CHANCE SCHOOL

PHASE 0: Enrollment
Duration: 2 months

Applications are invited from across the country for needy and deserving students. Students are shortlisted, interviewed, enrolled, and go through police verification and health check-up before starting the program.

PHASE 2: Internship/ Technical Education/ Business Development
Duration: 6 months to 1 year

Based on their intent, aptitude, and performance each student gets placed into an Internship or Technical course after completing the classroom training and some of the selected students nurture their business models. Duration of Internship and technical courses varies from student to student depending on the employer/institute/career students have chosen.

PHASE 1: Work and Life Readiness Classroom Training
Duration: 6 Months (few students need additional months based on their learning curve)
  • Each student goes through compulsory classroom training comprising of English, IT, Expressive arts, Life skills, Sports, Yoga, Grooming, Communication, workshops on 5 Areas of Development, Entrepreneurship program.
  • All programs are contextualized for our students and there is timely assessment, evaluation, and reflection to make these programs relevant throughout the period. They make individual road maps for their career and personal life and mentors give guidance, and counseling to navigate those maps.
PHASE 3: Placement and Independent Living
Duration: 6 Months

After completing their internship, technical courses, and business plan they enter the workforce and start doing paid jobs or earning through their business. Once they reach a threshold salary they move on to independent life and transition out of Second Chance School.

Pervasive phases- From inception till the culmination

FORMAL EDUCATION

All students are also enrolled in formal education through the National Institute of Open Schooling, School of Open Learning- Delhi University, Indira Gandhi National Open University to complete their 8th/Xth/XIIth/BA.

RESIDENTIAL LIFE SKILLS

All students living in residential facilities learn and interact with their peers from different regions, religions, and castes. They do their cooking, cleaning, and washing with guidance from a warden. They also go through guest lectures, counseling sessions, movie screenings, and excursions. We also focus on remedial support for students in need to accelerate their growth and learning.

Impact Numbers

Success stories

Learning Centers

Ritinjali is committed to ensuring that all children, irrespective of gender and social category, have access to education. It has set up various Learning Centres with a view to reduce the number of out-of-school children, to bridge learning gaps, and prepare children from marginalized communities for formal schooling. It also cater to school going students and provide remedial support to them. We try to bridge the gap of absence of parental support or peer support or infrastructural needs.

Arts Integrated and Reading Programmes is the core model for Learning centres
  • Ritinjaliā€™s Arts Integrated Programme (AIP) enhances the way in which children and young adults learn concepts and are able to connect them to their everyday lives. Ritinjali recognises the importance of the arts in developing empathy and sensitivity besides cognitive skills. Ritinjali believes that Arts education is the foundation for balanced creative, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic and social development of children,youth andĀ life-long learners.
  • Our Arts Integrated and Reading Programmes continue to foster a creative culture among children and teachers at the centre. The Arts Integrated Programme uses theatre, the visual arts, and dance as a medium to illuminate core subjects.Ā  The Reading Programme plays a key role in supporting the literacy needs of our children through a small Library, storytelling, and independent reading activities.
  • Lesson plans in the year focused on themes or units where the arts and associated reading activities illuminated other subjects. A series of art workshops and reading sessions were conducted with the children throughout the year – culminating into productions at the Ritinjali Utsav and publication of Ritinjali Magazine.

Skilling

What is the programme

Skilling programmes equip individuals from underprivileged communities by providing good quality training opportunities to become financially independent. The primary objective is to empower the young adults to be part of social and work life by offering them a wide spectrum of good-quality training opportunities which are suited to their individual needs. This approach involves giving them back their confidence and helping them acquire skills by encouraging them to adopt the attitudes required for successful integration.

Key Features of Skill development programme

Classroom Training

A Classroom training is aimed at grooming the students and equipping them with various soft skills, apart from training them in a vocational skill, in order to enable them to gain meaningful employment. Soft skills such as time management, decision-making, problem-solving etc., as well as functional, numerical and technological literacy equip the students for the job market. In the past year, 15 new students were enrolled who began their classroom training and got an opportunity to explore various fields of work through industry visits, field trips, seminars etc.

Project Life skills, Values

Life skills sessions along with one on one counseling, have created a significant impact upon the students, transforming them into more responsible humans who are conscious of their decisions. Periodic workshops on topics of relevance, such as leadership, work ethics, decision-making, communication etc. ensured that the students are on the path towards independent living and social reintegration. Theater sessions played a key role in setting off the process of healing in the students, enabling them to open up, place trust upon and collaborate with each other and express themselves freely.

Relief & Rehabilitation

Ritinjali has provided a helping hand in times of natural disasters, leading emergency relief efforts and community development in affected areas. While based in Delhi, the work and efforts have reached areas as

far-flung as Tripura, Meghalaya, Gujarat, Orissa, Pondicherry, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Nepal. In a bid to empower individuals to live more positive and healthy lives, Ritinjaliā€™s programme on Community Empowerment through Quality Healthcare provides access to quality health care facilities and elective surgeries.

Get Involved
  • DonateĀ 
  • Volunteer
  • Intern

Ritinjali is always looking for helping hands to make a difference in the lives of our children, young adults, and their communities and ultimately to the nation and the world.

NIOS Examination

NIOS exams are held in two parts in a year and students have to give theoretical and practical exams to clear the certification course. All the three programmes are National Institute of Open Learning School accredited course and students are able to build their careers through these certifications.

Fulltime Jobs/Transitioning

Most students gain self-reliance by securing jobs or setting up their own enterprises and supporting their families or get enrolled in courses of higher technical education to continue on the path of learning.

Rich Social Climate

The Skill Development programme was abuzz with activities the year round with volunteers and teachers planning life-skills sessions, educational visits, quizzes, essay writing and painting competitions, movie- screenings etc. The presence of volunteers from different parts of the world led to a rich exchange of cultures, ideas and values.

Impact

Since its inception in 2005, around 1800 young adults and women have been empowered to become financially independent through the Skill Development Programme.

CEP
  • As a necessary offshoot of Ritinjali, Centre for Escalation of Peace has organically evolved to tackle issues of conflict and poverty, lack of proper education and skilling, and disengagement with communities, to find viable solutions at a policy level. While Ritinjali works on the grassroots level by offering immediate support to those in need, CEP focuses on systemic issues and strategizing programmes to bring long-term changes and consolidated solutions.
  • The Centre for Escalation of Peace takes the view that peace is not just the absence of war. Peace cannot be taken for granted; constant effort is required to enhance it as an anchor in a sea of rapid and far-reaching strategic and socio-economic change. As such, peace must not merely be sustained, but escalated through various strategies and tactics akin to the pursuit of victory during war.
  • With that in mind, the CEP has continuously sought to create platforms and establish programmes that encourage the free exchange of ideas across borders, with a distinct focus on empowering young minds.
  • Its dialogues and activities revolve around three ā€˜pillars of calmnessā€™, namely :Ā (i) Youth and Education; (ii) Trade and Sustainable Development; and (iii) Society and Culture.