Hyderabad-based NGO offers free online classes to underprivileged amid COVID-19

A Hyderabad-based NGO is providing online classes to underprivileged children and students of government schools for free in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

The NGO 'Yashoda Foundation' has started a digital education project named Disha for those who can not afford to pursue education, especially during the lockdown.

Navin Kumar Barpathi of Yashoda Foundation told ANI, "Before pandemic, we organised community learning centres in slums. Now the need of the hour is to keep the education going in spite of the current situation. Our founder Santosh Kumar Kaveti has come up with the project 'Disha', a digital education program. We decided to have a secured application for teaching classes and we got in touch with Microsoft teams."

"It was difficult to conduct these classes. We faced a lot of challenges training the teachers with this new teaching process and making the children familiar with the same," Barpathi said.

He added that the platform is open for all the underprivileged children who are willing to attend the online classes.

Talloju Bhargavi, a teacher associated with the foundation said, "I am working for this NGO for the past four months. I teach mathematics to the students who are studying in government schools and who can not afford private tuition."

"Due to this pandemic, students are continuing their studies at home. It is really nice to see that some of the students from the orphanage are also attending these online classes," Bhargavi said.

A student, Urmila who is attending these classes said, "I am studying in Class 10 at Government High School Addagutta. While every private school is conducting online classes but we did not have this facility during the lockdown."

"As we know every second is important for a tenth class student. At the beginning of the Lockdown, we were concern about our exams but as soon as the Yashoda Foundation came up with the facilities of providing us online classes, I was relieved. Now I am sure that we can write the exams with full confidence," Urmila added. (ANI)