Poverty adversely affects the quality and quantity of education in the slums. Seven out of ten youth in slums drop out of school after Primary school due to a lack of school fees, career guidance or simply a parent’s unwillingness to enrol their children in higher level education. TFAU runs three programs to help keep these children in school: 1) Education Financial Support program, 2)Reading program, and 3) The Learning Center.
a) Education financial support
This program offers financial support to parents who cannot afford to pay for their child’s education. Tuition, textbooks, lesson fees and other costs for a particular school term are paid for by this program.
b) Reading club
The Reading Club is a reading intervention program created to help children with learning disabilities and poor reading skills learn to read at their appropriate grade levels. Through this program, children will learn to increase their reading speed, comprehension, and attention span using a community library.
c) The Learning Center
Located within a home, this free program caters for both children’s and young adults’ learning needs. It provides a safe, supervised formal and informal learning environment, where children are provided with games, educational tools, and counselling. Skills training and mentoring activities (see below for skill development specifics) are offered for pre-school and primary school students, as well as school dropouts and parents. The center also provides after school learning activities for lower primary school children to practice their newly acquired literacy, numeracy and sports.
