Surender Yadav

Self-Reliant India (SRI) is a non-profit organization with a mission to make historically under-resourced communities self-reliant with access to quality education. We aim to enhance the participation of influential and resourceful people of the community in their local government schools by elevating the credibility of these institutions. SRI’s flagship program Nanhe Kalam Fellowship was initiated with the goal to increase the number of students from historically under-resourced schools that get admitted in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV). In this we select local youth who aspire to be future teachers and equip them with the latest teaching pedagogy and skills and these youth prepare government school students for the JNV Selection Test. In the last 5 years, we have assisted 125+ such children get into JNV. When students from government schools clear JNV entrance, it builds the credibility of the school and through this we motivate influential and resourceful members to enroll their children in the government school. This eventually motivates the community to invest resources and time in the management of schools and hence, encourages the community to own the school. We have successfully implemented this model in Raliawas, Rewari, where almost 90% of students now study in government school. SRI vision is to ensure a self-reliant future for 25,000 students every year by assisting them to get into JNV and transforming each & every government school through community ownership.