Labhya
Model & Strategy
Children from low socio-economic and vulnerable backgrounds struggle to cope with poverty. Currently, 128 million children are enrolled in the Indian public education system. Most of these children experience multidimensional poverty, with a household income of $2 a day, or less. These children are unable to cope with the consequences of poverty, which leads to reduced attentiveness, lack of curiosity, demotivation, powerlessness, shame, and anger. This adversely affects their academic performance in the short term, followed by their resilience, relationships, mental health, and overall productivity and life choices in the long term.
Labhya Foundation partners with Indian state governments to co-create and ensure effective implementation of a state-wide daily Social Emotional Learning (SEL) class that is integrated into the school day. Labhya has led the collaboration on and creation of the world’s largest, and India’s first, at-scale emotional wellbeing programs for children. Labhya’s end-to-end support to government partners includes co-creation of contextualized curriculum, teacher capacity building, monitoring and evaluation, and policy provision. Currently, Labhya Foundation’s programs are enabling 2.4 million vulnerable children across 3 states in India to cope with poverty and become effective learners. An external study of Labhya by Boston Consulting Group showcased that 87% of teachers reported a positive behavioral change in children, with marked demonstration of skills like emotional resilience, relationship skills, and learning motivation due to their government programs.
Richa taught in under-resourced classrooms for over 10 years and holds a Master’s in International Education Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has been a Harvard Ministerial Leadership Fellow, a Harvard Equity & Inclusion fellow, a ‘Rising Talent 2020’ from the Women’s Forum and ‘Best Entrepreneur 2019’ by Takeda Foundation. She is the only Indian to be recognized by Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) as one of the Top 10 Youth Impact Leaders in Asia.
Vedant’s life purpose stems from his lived experience of adversity as a child. At the age of 17, Vedant became a full-time entrepreneur as the founding team member of a successful UK-based AI logistics startup. His own experience and journey as an entrepreneur led him to become a leader in the education space. Vedant is one of the handful of Indians to have received the prestigious Commonwealth Youth Award.
Impact
2.4 million children impacted through a daily SEL class in 22,000 public schools
150,000 teachers capacitated to effectively practice and deliver SEL Social Emotional Learning in classrooms
3 exemplar Public Private Partnerships with state governments, where governments cover 100% program costs
Selected as one of the most impactful and scalable innovations in Social Emotional Learning (SEL) globally by The LEGO Foundation & HundrED
