How NGO Lakshya Jeevan Jagriti Is Empowering Women & Kids

For NGO Lakshya Jeevan Jagriti, bagging the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao award from the Petroleum ministry in December 2018 proved that its efforts towards women's empowerment were bearing fruit. The Delhi-based organization, founded by Rahul Goswami and Summaiya Afreen in 2009, aims to provide opportunities to people to make them self-reliant. SheThePeople.Tv talked to Summaiya Afreen about the journey of their organization. We also conversed with some of the women who were students of the NGO's IT program.

The developmental activities of Lakshya Jeevan Jagriti

“The main agenda of our program is to support underprivileged children. We provide them with education from the very basic literacy classes to IT skills. After the completion of the program, we help them in placement as well. Also, we train mothers so that they can ably support their children. A mother should be a role model in the house and she should be able to support her child,” said Summaiya Afreen.

However, the NGO faced its share of difficulties in conducting its programmes.

When the programmes of Eklavya and ASMA (Aao sath maa) were started, the founders saw that there was a boom in admissions, but slowly found that there were dropouts as well. That's when the organization's founders started a Leadership Development Program where they started conversing with the people and talking about their fears

Giving an example of the success of the NGO's education programmes, Afreen said: “Tata Consultancy Services provides a programme for underprivileged students. Four of our students were selected for the programme. These students have got a major breakthrough.”

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Awards boosted efforts

Beti Bechao award is not the only award for Lakshya. It was also selected for the Tata Social Challenge award where the organization made it to the Top 20. It also topped in the IIM Indore competition of social enterprise. The NGO was also selected in the Global Good Fund, Washington DC, where they were given support for a year by the foundation. It has also bagged the Best Social Enterprise Award from Singapore International Foundation.

“Currently, we are a self-sustained organization. Our source of funding is the competitions that we have won till date. As a strategy for this year, we are approaching some corporates to gain funding,” said Afreen.

Meenakshi, who is a mother and also a student of the NGO's IT programme, said: “I come here because I face a lot of difficulty in teaching my child. My sister told me about this organization and I love coming here.”

Meena, who is taking care of most of the technical and computer work at the NGO, said: “I was a housewife and my husband is no more. The Lakshya team came to my house for a survey and I realized that I should also enrol in a computer course. I am working here after completing the course."