This project was based on the SDG - Gender Equality. 

I worked on trying to find solutions to the problem of female dropouts from schools in Mumbai. I interviewed a number of children and their parents from a near by chawl, to find out the real problems and what they thought could make a difference and bring about a change to the way education of girl children is looked at.

After my research and analysis I realised that the main reason that these girls were dropping out was a because of lack of interest. So my aim was to come up with solutions or programmes that would make learning and going to school fun for them. 

I came up with a number of basic changes that would help in making this experience more engaging for them, like more group work, change in seating arrangements etc. but, the main solution that I developed was a board game, which was a mixture of the famous board games 'Business' and 'Snakes and Ladders' and could be played for any subject, individually or in a group. 

The board that I made was more specific to the sciences, hence the the DNA strand ladders and obstructions like 'Define', 'Function' and 'Uses'. 

How this works is basically, each time a player lands on one of these boxes, they pick up a card from the deck, which is the same idea as 'Chance' or 'Community Chest'. These cards can have questions from any subject and can even be personalised. For example, if i'm a player and I land on the the term 'Define', I pick up a card that says 'mitochondria', so I have to define mitochondria to the rest of the players. This way the game ensures learning in a fun way and kids can play it on their own, or in a group, with the board or with just the cards for revision. 

When I visited the girls again after coming up with these solutions, they all seemed very engaged in playing the game and had a lot of fun. I incorporated questions from their curriculums so it made it even more personalised and through this game-based learning technique, I managed to satisfy all of 'Blooms Revised Taxonomy' models of learning. 

To conclude, it was a great experience for the kids, the parents and me because they felt like they were being heard instead of their problem being generalised to financial or safety reasons.It was a very enriching experience for me as well because if it weren't for this project, I would've never broken out of my shell and done something like this and in the end it felt great to watch the girls actually enjoy and like playing the game.