ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2022
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. Over 31,000 young leaders on 2,400+ campuses across 140+ nations applied to join the Class of 2022. 200+ campuses worldwide (just 8%) were selected to host the 3,000+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT VIDUSHI MAHESHWARI, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2022.
Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University | Lucknow, India | Advancing SDG 4 & UNAI 3
" Being a Millennium Fellow will help me to develop my creativity, intuition, and empathy, which is why I'm thrilled about it. When I first entered the institution, I had an ambition of being a Millennium Fellow since doing the project allows us to learn about the significance of a UN SDG. It is an experience that will last for a lifetime. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: SHIKSHANAM
There is an indisputable disparity in society's resources, which manifests itself in many ways including access to education and inherent privileges. The dropout rates of students throughout the country across classes remain at an extreme high. As per the data released by Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) in 2020-21, the enrollment of students at the pre-primary level and class 1 has gone down by 29.1 lakh and 18.8 lakh respectively in 2020-21 from 2019-20. The report shows that the overall dropout rate in 2020-21 at the secondary level is 14.6 percent, down from 16.1 percent in 2019-20. At the primary level, the dropout rate in 2020-21 is 0.8 percent, down from 1.5 percent in 2019-20. Furthermore, due to a lack of adequate funds, physical infrastructure, and qualified teachers, India spends only slightly more than 3% of its GDP on education, compared to the benchmark of 6% that every national education policy has set since 1968, which is another impediment to providing quality education to children in India. With insufficient national resources invested in promoting quality education in our country and administrative failure in terms of efficient policy and plan implementation, it is understood that students who are a product of this system will not be able to act as diligent citizens in a civil society. A complete method integrated with a well-thought-out plan to amalgamate core educational elements and skill education is necessary for a person to thrive in today's society. Although the State Council of Educational Research and Training launched 'Bridge Courses' to provide vocational training, they have delivered no actual results. Following the discovery of such figures, the two primary subthemes that were introduced into our initiative were imparting excellent education and providing youngsters with technical skills. During our investigation for this project, we discovered gaps in the way resources such as time, money, and energy was being committed to teaching underprivileged children, but no concrete value was being obtained. With the curriculum established by our team, we hope to deliver basic education to a cohort of 150 poor youngsters while also preparing them for entrance examinations to schools. We intend not only to teach them academics, but also to familiarise them with social constructs (such as basic life skills, legal redressal methods, gender roles, reproductive education, fundamental rights, and so on), as well as to provide them with basic knowledge of how to use laptops/computers and search engines such as Google, and to prepare them to enter civil society. The curriculum has been constructed in such a way that it will assist these youngsters in becoming skilled in functioning fully in civic society. The ultimate goal of this project is to collaborate with the District Inspector of Schools, gain their support, and get the students admitted into the various schools through the Right to Education Act, 2009, allowing children who were unable to gain education due to social or economic constraints to be a part of the formal education system once again.
About the Millennium Fellow
Vidushi Maheshwari is a hardworking and punctual pre-law student studying at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University. She believes humanity to be the supreme religion and is actively involved in events of social justice. She is passionate about women’s rights and child rights. Vidushi wants to work in a profession that will allow her to advance these causes further and leads to the expansion of UN Sustainable Development goals.