Pratham UK's 'Big Give Christmas Challenge': Over £92,000 Raised to Support Education and Empowerment for Women and Girls!

Running for one week from Giving Tuesday every year, The Big Give Christmas Challenge offers a unique opportunity to make your donations go further. Thanks to generous match-funding champions, every pound you donate is doubled, meaning you make twice the impact! This year, we celebrate raising an incredible £92,307, which will support over 400 women and girls’ to return to education and take their class 10 exams!

Empowering women through the Second Chance Programme

The focus of our campaign this year is Pratham’s Second Chance Programme, a lifeline for women who have previously had to leave school. Many women in rural India face barriers to education due to poverty, early marriage, or a lack of access to schools. These challenges often result in young girls leaving education prematurely, limiting their future prospects.

The Second Chance Programme addresses these challenges by:

• Providing access to education: Offering tailored learning modules that help women take their class 10 exams
• Flexible scheduling: Allowing participants to balance education with work and family responsibilities
• Mentorship and guidance: Supporting women to build confidence, skills, and resilience as they pursue their goals
• Transformational outcomes: Graduates of the programme not only achieve academic success but often become role models and changemakers in their communities.

Donations made through The Big Give Christmas Challenge this year, will directly contribute to expanding this life-changing programme, enabling more women to reclaim their education and shape a brighter future. Since its inception, the programme has empowered over 40,000 women and girls to complete their secondary schooling and gain access to further education and new career opportunities.

Why your support matters

When you support the Second Chance Programme, you’re doing more than funding education—you’re helping women unlock opportunities they never thought possible. By equipping women with the confidence, skills, and qualifications they need, the programme creates a ripple effect, uplifting families and communities. Stories like Siddhi’s—a graduate who has now become a teacher on the programme—serve as powerful reminders of the transformative potential of this work.

What’s next?

The journey doesn’t end here! While we celebrate the success of this campaign, the need for education and empowerment continues and programmes like ‘Second Chance’ remain vital in providing life-changing opportunities for women and girls in India. Our hope is that the Second Chance Programme will continue to expand, through generous funding from our supporters and enable us to reach even more women and girls across India.

Thank you for being a part of this journey and helping us to build brighter futures. Together, we’re creating lasting change, one life at a time.

Stay tuned for updates on how your support is making a difference in the lives of these incredible women and girls!