How we choose our goals
The Sustainable Development Goals are the global goals agreed at the United Nations[64]. An organisation of this size touches a dozen of them somewhere, so at DreamSpace Academy we apply one test.
We list a goal only if something specific stands behind it: a programme, work we have already done, or work somebody can go and see.
Where the work is real but we have not measured its results, we say so. Goals we used to list that do not pass the test have been taken off, and are shown further down.
The goals we lead with
Quality education
Teaching term by term inside government schools in several districts, with written approval from the zonal education authorities, alongside teacher training at scale and the Changemaker Journey itself. The STEAM programmes are one part of our education work.
Industry, innovation and infrastructure
The makerspaces built, the grassroots research and development carried out in our labs, and training in Erode, Tamil Nadu, run by our own team with araCreate India, a related organisation.
Peace, justice and strong institutions
Work on information integrity (helping people tell reliable information from false), media work, and peacebuilding programmes. Judged by funding and recognition, this is the largest part of our work.
Further goals the work carries
| Goal | What stands behind it | Limits on the claim |
|---|---|---|
| 10: Reduced inequalities | Where the work happens and who can reach it: work in the North, the East and the central estate sector (the plantation areas), and a written pathway for including people with disabilities. | None needed. |
| 8: Decent work and economic growth | Ventures and small enterprises supported, and an impact-loan fund. Whether each venture is still running is followed case by case, and a full register is still being built. | We do not yet claim a change in income. We are starting to record people’s situation when they join, including income, so that any change can be measured later. |
| 5: Gender equality | Programmes run specifically with and for women, and women-led ventures supported. | We are building a register of everyone who takes part. We will publish the share of women from it. |
| 13: Climate action | Green-technology training delivered with a partner, plus environmental prototypes built in our labs. | The prototypes have been built, but none is yet in use by someone who depends on it. |
| 12: Responsible consumption and production | Circular-materials work: a recycling venture with several awards behind it, a plastics machine, recycled filament, mycelium biocomposite, palmyrah bioplastic. | None needed. This is the goal with the best evidence behind it. |
Goals we do not claim
We removed two goals from this list, for different reasons.
The goal does not fit the work. None of its targets is about farm output, so farming businesses do not count towards it.
The one piece of work that did fit, on conflict between people and elephants, was dropped before it reached any user.
The work is real: enterprises supported, ventures backed, a loan fund running. We have not yet measured whether it has reduced poverty. We are starting to record people’s income when they join and to follow them up afterwards. Until that shows a result, we list this goal as an aim of the work, not a result.
A goal on partnership is being considered and has not been adopted. It will appear here only once we have decided.
How we measure impact
The goals above describe where the work is heading. They do not measure it. What we count, and how, is set out under measurement and in the commitments on values and standards.
Two outside standards shape how we measure, and we can be held to both:
- The World Bank’s principles for education technology: ask why, design for scale and for everyone, support teachers, engage the ecosystem, and be driven by data[54].
- UNICEF’s pillars for technology used with children: safety first, demonstrated effect on learning, designed for children, accessible, and equitable[53].
The weakest part of the measurement is the medium term: the two to five years after the work, when the changes we most expect are supposed to show up.
We keep good counts of the work we do. We are now setting up the records and follow-up that will show what happens in those middle years.