For her gender-synchronized teaching approaches in schools, Manu Gulati, a Delhi Government School teacher, has won the Martha Farrell Award for 2019.
For her gender-synchronized teaching approaches in schools, Manu Gulati, a Delhi Government School teacher, won the Martha Farrell Award in the category of ‘Most Promising Individual’. Ms. Gulati has been evolving and implementing teaching approaches which address gender inequality in schools for last 13 years. Her methods identify and address the unique barriers that keep girls out of school.
Ms. Gulati began teaching in a government school in a low-income community in West Delhi in 2006. To empower her girl students, she started focusing on increasing their participation in life skills education, enhancing their academic output. She also began efforts toward sensitizing, motivating, and mobilizing community structures (teachers, community heads, families and peers) in and around schools, to eliminate cultural barriers that deter girls from pursuing education.
She uses strategies such as social and community mobilization, livelihood training, technology, dance, music and art to improvise teaching methods. These help in imparting formal knowledge and technical skills to girl students. Her methods have helped her students in becoming more aware about themselves and the society.
Ms. Gulati also works with boys to build a gender equitable environment, where all students can learn, thrive and grow.
The Martha Farrell Foundation says, “Like Martha,
Manu Gulati exemplifies that to realize gender equality it has to be practiced in our everyday actions in both our professional and personal lives.”
The Martha Farrell awards were instituted in memory of Martha Farrell, who was a passionate civil society leader, renowned and respected in India and around the world for her work on women’s rights, gender equality, and adult education. The awards are given in two categories – ‘Most Promising Individual’ and ‘Best Organization for Gender Equality’ – to individuals and organizations working toward issues pertaining to gender equality.
(source NDTV)
