Every morning, lanes in this dry and remote mandal in Andhra Pradesh direct to a school, where you can see smiling faces and sparkling eyes of children, subtly displaying confidence.

Located in one of the remote locations in SPSR Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh, Gundemadakala Zilla Parishad Government High School has been the hot pursuit for all the parents in the region to enroll their children. Reasons are many, which include commitment of the teachers, innovative interventions, consistent excellence in academics and extracurricular activities for the past couple of years. Thanks to a few committed teachers, who took interest in garnering support from the community as well as from the parents, students of this school today are able to compete with students from private schools.

Social Empowerment and Economic Development Society (SEEDS; facebook: @seedsimpactindia), a not for profit organization, with its rural campus in Duttalur village of SPSR Nellore District, has been working with the school administration, and with the teachers on the holistic improvement of the school, with an objective to improve learning outcomes in schools through technological and non-technological interventions. One such technological intervention was the introduction of digital classes through an innovative multimedia device named K-Yan (supported by IL&FS Education; facebook: @ilfseducation), which has helped transformed the teaching-learning methodology with positive outcomes.

^{Introducing English language learning through ReadToMe software}

“Digital classes have helped me visualize concepts taught by my teacher, and understand them much better thereby enabling me to score high marks in board exams” says Harika, district topper, who has scored a CGPA of 10. Improvement in grades is only one outcome of the objective, but the overall development of the child and his/her understanding of the concepts they learn in school, while developing requisite future-ready skills such as communication skills and English Language learning are few other long-term outcomes of these interventions.

The idea was never to replace a teacher, but only to equip them with relevant tools supplementing their efforts in terms of making the students understand concepts better. Therefore, the first step was towards equipping the teachers with requisite skill-sets in using these tools, getting them acquainted with it and assisting them whenever they needed help.

Along with Gundemadakala Zilla Parishad Government High School, 4 other government schools were adopted by SEEDS for holistic development as a part of its “Vidya” initiative under the Project LEED (Local area Education & Economic Development). Interventions in these schools include improvement of learning outcomes through technological and non-technological interventions, improving communication skills and imparting English language learning, career guidance program involving psychometric tests for all the students of 9^th and 10^th standards, including mapping their aspirations and potential and thereby providing them varied choices that they could look for.

^{Usage of Kyan}

An annual quiz competition held in the district,covering 150+ government schools and more than 3200 students, has created a competitive streak in students putting them on equal footing with their counterparts in private schools. Digital literacy, basic and advanced computing skills for school children of different grades are some of the courses that SEEDS organise in summer free of cost, providing the students in these remote areas an access, which they otherwise lack.

About SEEDS and its LEED initiative:

Social Empowerment and Economic Development Society (SEEDS) is a not for profit organisation based out of New Delhi, with genesis in Duttalur Village of SPSR Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh.  Major areas of focus include Education, Vocational Skills, Livelihoods, Rural Entrepreneurship and Local area Development.

In Duttalur village, SEEDS has initiated Project LEED (Local area Education and Economic Development), aimed at the holistic development of an area through Education and Economic Development that enhances the standard of living of the people at the bottom of the pyramid. As a part of it, SEEDS has been working on a development model that encompasses education and economic Development interventions through initiatives such as ARTI (Agriculture and Rural Technologies Initiative), Vidya (Education), Kaushal(Skills) and Swasthya (Health) impacting more than 10,000 people directly and around 40,000 people indirectly every year.

Rural Entrepreneurship is one of the core areas of SEEDS. In its rural campus in Duttalur, it has demonstrated a sustainable model providing trainings to aspiring rural youth entrepreneurs. The idea is to promote entrepreneurship in rural areas with focus on agri-allied non-farm activities such as Dairy, stall-fed goatery, backyard poultry etc.

Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at csr@ngobox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage.