Parvaaz means “to take flight,” and reflects our guiding principle of empowering people to rise above the challenges they face.

Parvaaz is an impact-focused initiative that applies insights from research in behavioral science towards developing and implementing programs designed to improve health and well-being, education, and employment. We work with governments and implementing organizations to apply evidence-based approaches to the economic and social challenges people across India face. Our approach involves developing innovative solutions, rigorously testing and evaluating these solutions, and collaborating with implementing partners to bring the most effective solutions to scale.

Key Areas of Focus

We leverage partnerships to build economic opportunity and invest in future generations across three core focus areas: health and wellbeing, education, and employment and labor markets. Read more about examples of our work below.

1. Health and well-being: Reducing drug addiction among youth in Punjab through a novel film-based curriculum

This collaboration aims to reduce drug experimentation, use, and addiction among youth in Punjab by leveraging an innovative film-based curriculum to target critical misconceptions at the root of risky behaviors. Early qualitative and quantitative work made clear that youth throughout Punjab dramatically underestimate the risks of heroin addiction following experimentation, and overestimate the ability to overcome addiction using willpower. In partnership with an internationally-renowned filmmaker, our team developed a novel film-based drug prevention curriculum that targets precisely these misconceptions through engaging videos featuring relatable people powerfully sharing their experiences with drug use. An evaluation of the program with nearly 10,000 students in Punjab showed powerful effects: Students who completed the program were nearly 30% more likely to believe that trying heroin once carries a high risk of addiction, and nearly 50% less likely to believe that willpower alone is sufficient to overcome addiction.

The Government of Punjab is currently scaling the drug prevention program throughout all secondary schools in Punjab, reaching over 750,000 students in over 3,600 schools in just the first year. In parallel, our team is conducting a randomized evaluation of the program in over 400 Vocational Institutes across Punjab, quantifying the impact of the program on beliefs, drug use, educational progress, and employment.

For more coverage, see the CEGA Policy Brief and CEGA Impact Story.

2. Education: Leveraging adaptive technology to facilitate learning

Our work in the education space focuses on bringing scalable solutions that leverage approaches with demonstrated impacts on learning directly into the classroom. This includes integrating structured student practice using low-cost, adaptive technology into instructional class time. Stay tuned for more information on this ongoing work.

3. Employment: Equipping youth for employment in the modern economy

This work focuses on providing opportunities for youth in India to build human capital and valuable skills, opening the door to employment in our modern, global economy. Stay tuned for more information on this early-stage work.

Collaborators

Our work would not be possible without our collaborating partners, including J-PAL South Asia at IFMR and the Department of Education (Punjab). We also thank the Agency Fund and the Fund for International Development (FID) other donors for financial support. 

Contact

For more information or to partner with us, contact us at parvaaz@berkeley.edu.