Surfing the Digital age with 21st Century skills
The Foundation Course in – Digital Literacy and 21st century Life Skills is the result of headstreams’ work with women’s Self help Groups (SHGs). headstreams identified the need for a more specific skill-based training that would be relevant, not just for livelihood enhancement but for everyday lives in today’s society.Many of the women that headstreams works with were interested in continuing education and yet unable to commit full-time to it due to several constraints, both within and outside their homes.
Headstreams publicised the course through the existing Self-Help Groups in A. Narayanpura. 40 out of 60 applicants were selected for the course, the criteria being basic minimum schooling and the cut-off point being PUC. The 40 women who were selected were from low-income and marginalised communities with close to 80% of them not completing their schooling, one-third of them dropped out before reaching middle school, 3 out of 4 were unemployed, while the rest were involved in part-time employment.
The Foundation Course was held in two batches of 20 students each. It began in mid-July 2014 and concluded with a valedictory on the October 30, 2014.
The Course was scheduled in two time slots – 10.00-11.30 a.m. and 1.00-2.30 p.m. The course was conducted three days in the week. The course content included digital literacy, communicative English and life skills while the content delivery included puppet shows, role plays, presentations, discussions, life-skills exercises, projects in MS-Office and a study tour to the Planetarium.
The second round of the Foundation Course is scheduled to begin soon and will be completed within a period of three months. The Course will be held in two batches, with Batch 1 scheduled for the 10.00-11.30 a.m. time slot and Batch 2 from 5.30-7.00 p.m. Batch 2 has been planned to enable working women to participate in the Course.
The second round of the Foundation Course is scheduled to begin on 7th January 2014.