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Mrida's maiden 10th Grade batch shines brightly
The highlight for Mrida in the month of June was the Class 10th results of our first batch of students. This batch had a total of 16 students with 14 boys and 2 girls. The average score of the graduating batch was 66.5%. Our overall results were 99% with 79.4% being the highest score, secured by Sanjay Bairagi.
Win-Win with Academics and Sports
Sanjay is the son of Ashok Kumar Bairagi, a hardworking carpenter earning daily wages, and Lalita Bai, a dedicated homemaker. Hailing from the village of Bakori in Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh, Sanjay’s achievement is a testament to his unwavering determination and resilience. Sanjay is interested in engineering and programming and has picked Science with Mathematics as his stream post Class 10th. Similar to Sanjay, two other students have also picked Science with Mathematics.
Another student who deserves special recognition is Pramod Wate, who achieved an impressive score of 73.4%. Pramod is also a professional footballer who was selected to play in the youth I-League 2022-23 from ATK Mohun Bagan and spent 4 months training in Kolkata. Despite this absence, Pramod’s commitment to his academic pursuits remained unwavering, resulting in his remarkable performance and commendable results.
Another student who deserves special recognition is Pramod Wate, who achieved an impressive score of 73.4%. Pramod is also a professional footballer who was selected to play in the youth I-League 2022-23 from ATK Mohun Bagan and spent 4 months training in Kolkata. Despite this absence, Pramod’s commitment to his academic pursuits remained unwavering, resulting in his remarkable performance and commendable results.
Depth of Impact
Mrida was established to provide high quality education to first-generation learners from tribal and impoverished backgrounds. We run a School from pre-primary to Class 8 and supports learners to write Class 10 exams through partnerships with other schools. We run a hostel that provides balanced meals, accommodation and a well-rounded environment that helps these children thrive. In addition, we also provide training in football, exposure to learning programming and developing an interest in STEM as also opportunities for entrepreneurship in farming. We started with 90 students and have witnessed tremendous growth, currently accommodating 331 students across different grade levels. Initially, we ran a day school but faced challenges with low attendance of 20-30% during the monsoon season. In Madhya Pradesh with no public bus service and inadequate private buses, reaching school remains the biggest challenge. The second challenge is extreme malnutrition – our students arrived in school with no food or previous night’s leftovers that would often get spoilt by lunchtime. This led to starting the residential program in 2018-19 with 41 students in the first batch. Children started receiving three major meals and one minor meal every day. The results have been remarkable with 100% of students of the residential program completely out of anaemia or at the borderline in a region where 70% of children are anaemic. Today, the hostel capacity has more than tripled to 148 students, comprising more than 50% of our total strength in academic year 2023-24. Of these, 46% are girls while the rest are boys. We welcomed 45 new admissions this year of which 18 are girls and 27 boys, showcasing a balanced gender distribution among the fresh intake.
Today, thanks to the support of Feeding India by Zomato and other donors, we are able to ensure that children are eating healthy meals, having served 1,15,964 meals in 2022-23.Over the last 7 years, Mrida’s work in education has found favour with the community as our waiting lists typically have 200+ children from far-off villages, for a place in our residential program.
Today, thanks to the support of Feeding India by Zomato and other donors, we are able to ensure that children are eating healthy meals, having served 1,15,964 meals in 2022-23.Over the last 7 years, Mrida’s work in education has found favour with the community as our waiting lists typically have 200+ children from far-off villages, for a place in our residential program.
Selection Process at Mrida
There are 3 categories of students that we work with:
Hostel students who are on full scholarship:These are talented students from extremely poor families with a preference to children from single-parent families or orphans. We do not charge anything from them – the families are encouraged to provide any food (fruits, corn, etc.) in kind as and when they have it.
School students who are on tuition scholarships: These are students from poor families from neighboring villages. We do not charge any tuition fee from them but they have to take care of books, stationary and their travel cost (from home to school and back)
School students who pay subsidized fees: These are students who are able to pay some fees – they pay 40% of our actual per child cost.
- There is a four-level selection process to select these children:
- We organize a Baby League tournament where we invite 400+ children from different villages to participate. This takes place over a month.
- Our team visits the homes of the talented children identified in the Baby League to check socio-economic situation. In this round, the family’s assets, job status of family, income, status of agriculture, number of siblings, etc. are all checked for and documented (photographs, questionnaire, etc.)
- The children who are needy are invited to school where they write a test to assess their baseline level and are put through other physical tests.
- Once selected, they are invited with parents where we talk to them about Mrida, what it means to be selected and other policies. Once they are onboard, we extend admission to them.
Admissions in 2023-24
In the academic year 2023-24, we have a total of 315 beneficiaries.
We are also scaling our work in sports to 1500 children with anti-tobacco as a theme, significant in a region with widespread gutkha and tobacco use among children thanks to funding from Reliance Foundation.We are in need of funds to be able to meet our running costs – for academic year 2023-24, our total running costs are Rs. 2 crore. So far, we have raised Rs. 1 crore and still have 50% of the funds left to raise. If your organizations have a CSR budget, we encourage you to connect us. Our remote location makes it tough for us to raise CSR funding and your help can go a long way. We urge you to come forward and help us generously in this region-transforming effort. Click here.
We are also scaling our work in sports to 1500 children with anti-tobacco as a theme, significant in a region with widespread gutkha and tobacco use among children thanks to funding from Reliance Foundation.We are in need of funds to be able to meet our running costs – for academic year 2023-24, our total running costs are Rs. 2 crore. So far, we have raised Rs. 1 crore and still have 50% of the funds left to raise. If your organizations have a CSR budget, we encourage you to connect us. Our remote location makes it tough for us to raise CSR funding and your help can go a long way. We urge you to come forward and help us generously in this region-transforming effort. Click here.
