Friends of Pratham

Bastar = violence?

2011-11-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

What comes to mind when you hear of Bastar?

I know you cannot post a reply to this question but again, I write this as a rhetorical question.

Bastar inevitably reminds you of the violence between the naxals and the police. It reminds you of the 'government's war on its own people' as some intellectuals might put it. It reminds you of the various interviews

given by Home Minister, P Chidambaram vowing to remove naxalism. It reminds you of the cease fire called by naxals. It reminds you of the hundreds of CRPF men who were killed in neighboring district, Dantewada. It reminds you of the scape goats made of villagers by both the CRPF and the naxals. Well, it reminds you of a lot of things and for no strange reason, they are all related to either the government or the naxal movement and related killings.

As a result, when I was told that I needed to visit Bastar to do a pilot of one of our programs, I was excited. This is the kind of excitement you get when you do a bunjee or when skydiving. In all these cases, you know the dangers attached to what you are doing and that is what gives you the rush of adrenaline. And, I must also add, that is what makes you want to do it again....

After a 20 hour train journey we reached Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, where we had a briefing from the State head of our program. He successfully managed to convert hints of my excitement to fear, so much so that I dreamt of being shot at by a naxal that night. It definitely wasn't the best of feelings especially knowing that you had pretty much reached the point of no return. The fear was that this rhetoric point of no return could turn into reality any moment. But with a brave face and a few adieus to family and friends, we set forth.

Very soon we were making our way through the jungles on NH 30 and later on NH 43. The roads, though quite narrow, were in good condition and various cars and trucks were speeding their way on it. We reached our destination around 4:30pm that day and after a brief discussion with our team, we set forth to one of our villages. We reached this place just before dawn and spend some time talking with community members. In a span of about half an hour all we could see was the dim headlight of our car and the multitude of stars in the sky. We made our way to the class where I was taken by surprise at the dedication with which the volunteer was teaching kids around an inch long flame that was emanating a yellow light, that was just sufficient to help differentiate one word from another. We visited another class after this where the conditions were the same. We wa

nted to stay longer and bask in the light heat that the light produced, as it had started becoming chill, but we could not for fear of investigations from people on our way back out of the village.

The next day our local team took us to a village that came in the B category of a 3 point scaling system for severity of naxal activity (the previous village was C). The village was deep in the jungle and we had to make our way through 3 kilometers of somewhat densely covered forests and watchful eyes - some of which were visible to us and some others that we couldn't see but whose presence revered was the least fatal choice. Again, we reached this village just before dawn and managed to meet some villagers and click their pictures. Interacting with villagers here was slightly difficult, initially, because for them we were 'outsiders' and any suspicion would result in sharp stones making their mark on your bodies. But the situation eased out once we started interacting with villagers in the presence of the volunteer who taught children. My mindset was very much changed by the enthusiasm of the children there - once they felt safe, they were freely posing in front of my camera. Their poses, though, were very interesting because it only meant that they would stand at attention like a regiment of the army or the police or a guerilla group. It was too early and very futile to make conclusions. I had no vested interest but to see how classes were running. Along the way, if I got to learn a bit about their culture and lifestyles, it was great. The sun had set as we made our way back through the jungle and the tall trees had added to the darkness. I was in constant fear of getting lost and meeting the eyes we could not see earlier. The

se watchful eyes were known to come out in the night. Overall, this visit was very good in instilling more confidence in my mind about the level of safety in Bastar. (I use the word safety instead of danger here, which I hope will reflect my change in mindset)

The third day was very exciting as we got closer to the villagers we met in a third village. And, as is usually the case in most social gatherings, alcohol was the lubricant that smothered any differences or fear we had in our minds. I was introduced to the world of Bastar Beer (sulphi) and mahua and tadi. Well, usually, I am not fond of drinking but when the locals brought me these things with a lot of love I thought it would be a good idea to oblige. Though, there were no great utterances of words post this, I felt much closer to them than before. I felt very warm in their presence. And, this was not the alcohol taking effect, I genuinely felt like we were the same and that there was no need for fear any more. Their sense of hospitality was as good as you might find in any other normal village in India. The only difference here was the circumstances under which these people were living. These circumstances have defined their identity. And, unless you mustered the courage to get close to them, this identity will present itself to you as the reality. But as soon as you get, even remotely, close to them this false identity will fall apart to give way to the real self.

This is what provoked a line above on my wanting to do this trip again. I feel like I need to understand these places better. That I need to understand the people of these places better before taking any stance on the conflict between naxals and government. Till now I took a stance on this issue based my reading of articles in newpapers and my theoretical understanding of ideologies. But this trip changed the way I looked at this issue. I now want to

understand the people living in these situations before taking a stand eitherways. May be, eventually, I won't take a stand eitherways if I feel that taking a stance eitherways will hurt the livelihoods of the people here.

Before concluding, though, one observation that I feel I should share is that villages that were of C category of naxal activity, usually had a pukka road leading to it in addition to some signs of electricity (even if it is only a pole for transmission of electricity). On the other hand, villages that were of higher category of naxal activity didn't have any of these. Well, I do not want anybody to draw conclusions from these observations because in statistical terms they are based on a small sample size. But I hope this will encourage many others to visit these areas to truly understand the situation. For myself, I am quite sure of doing another trip to these areas some time soon.

Boban Varghese Paul

PRM Associate

This Time for Africa...

2011-09-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mali, Senegal... India. Different countries, different cultures, different contexts. Then what has suddenly made people from all these countries travel to each others' villages? What do we have in common? The Answer... A new challenge with Children.

The ASER National Workshop, held annually in Lucknow, brings together associates from all parts of India to kick off the beginning of the ASER survey season, a three month long initiative to gauge children’s learning levels across the rural areas of the country. This year, the diversity of the group was further amplified by the presence of visitors from three African countries, Mali, Senegal and Kenya. Inspired by ASER’s wide reach and impact, visitors explained that they had come to the workshop to get an ‘insider’s’ view of the ASER process in order to launch or strengthen similar surveys in their home countries.

In addition to attending sessions on tools, dissemination and trainings, the visiting teams were able to fit in a field visit to a village. When asked to reflect on their experience, our guests replied that they were taken aback by the hospitality of villagers and the comfortable interactions between the survey teams and local residents. What was a less charming aspect of their stay? The constant honking you hear on the streets they exclaimed.

Before leaving for home, members from all three countries noted that the workshop was a good way to understand the fitment of the nuts and bolts of conducing large-scale, community driven surveys.

By Shinjini Chatterjee

Research Associate, ASER Centre

Travelling through no man’s land….

2011-06-27T02:51:00.001-07:00

My knowledge about Chhattisgarh was limited to the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India; the Dantewada incidents; that the State was a part of Madhya Pradesh in 2000 and that it was heavily forested and produced some amazing handicraft. My recent trip to the State for the Joint Review Mission helped me get a better view of the State.

Day 1 (March 5^th) – Dhamtari

I am accompanying a two member review team, Chloe O’Gara from the Hewlett Foundation and Basanti Roy, who once held a senior post in the Education Department, Government of Maharashtra. Our first visit is to the district of Dhamtari, where Pratham is working in 3 out of the 4 blocks in the district. The district coordinator, whom we had met the previous day in Raipur (the state capital), told us that he would like to take us to a village in the forested hills where no Government school exists but Pratham volunteer runs classes.

Our first stop in Dhamtari is an Education for Education (EFE) center. Education for Education is a Pratham program started this year. The concept of EFE is that in order to strengthen Read India (volunteer classes), Pratham will offer computer classes to volunteers in exchange for their teaching in the Read India program. We spent quite a bit of time in the first EFE center, where volunteers, many of them young girls, were taking computer lessons. Almost all of them were using computers for the first time. Apart from computers, there seemed to be a lot of demand for English as well.

After this, we visit another EFE center and then go to our local office to interact with the staff and to have lunch. The roads in Dhamtari are surprisingly good. We travel through paddy fields on both sides – Chhatisgarh is renowned for rice. The scenery is interesting because it’s a blend of light forest and paddy fields, a contrast to the rice-growing regions of West Bengal and Assam, where all you see on both sides of the road are paddy fields stretching for miles and miles, with very few trees interrupting the view. The other interesting thing is that every village in Chhatisgarh has two ponds – one large, deep pond and one smaller, shallow pond. Villagers dig these ponds, which get filled in during the rainy season.

In the late afternoon, the Dhamtari District Coordinator takes us to a remote part of the block, since he wants to give us the flavor for some of the difficult, tribal areas in which Pratham works. We go through beautiful forests. For miles, there’s no human habitation to be seen but just forest on both sides of the road. It is beautiful. Again, the road is surprisingly good. After many miles of forest, we reach some villages – most of them quite small. We pass by a few reservoirs created by dams. We also pass by a lake, in which a few boats stand motionless. The scenery is stunning – forested hills, lakes and the orange glow of the setting sun appearing in and out of view through gaps in the forest treeline. We finally reach the volunteer class – one of them is a housewife, who’s teaching children in Std 3 – 5. She’s a really good teacher and the children are participating eagerly and have made good progress. Another volunteer, a young man, is teaching children in Std 1 – 2. He’s not that great a teacher. Nevertheless, both of them seem really dedicated. It is great to see good learning happening in a remote village in Chhatisgarh, one of the most backward states in India. One of the children asks us why we are leaving the village at night. He asks us to stay over and tells us that he will take us for a stroll in the jungle the next morning. It was endearing but unfortunately, we had to go. By now it was pitch dark. The forest, which seemed so lovely during the day seems ominous now. I think about the Naxals – will we encounter them? Of course, the local team keeps re-assuring us that there’s limited Naxal presence in the area we are in. In any case, we go out of the forested areas without any incident and reach Raipur by 9:30 pm, ending an eventful day.

Days 3 & 4 (March 7^th and 8^th) – Bastar

Today we leave for Bastar, which Gaurav (state head of Chhatisgarh) keeps telling us will be the most interesting part of our trip. Bastar is a heavily tribal populated area with the entire area being covered by dense forest. It is also one of the severely Naxal insurgency affected districts, although Gaurav gives us multiple assurances that we would come to no harm. Bastar is a huge district. Farasgaon, the block in which we work is towards the Northern end of Bastar. Farasgaon is a 3.5 hour journey from Raipur. From Farasgaon, an hour and a half journey takes you to Jagdalpur, the district capital, famous for Bastar Art (bronze sculptures made in some tribal villages in the area) and two big waterfalls. Beyond Bastar is Dantewada, the infamous aforementioned Naxal controlled district. Gaurav says that the southern parts of Bastar are quite dangerous due to heavy Naxal presence but that Farasgaon is safe. Apart from Bastar, Pratham works in Dantewada, Bijapur and Narayanpur – all severely Naxal affected districts. In some parts of these districts, Naxalites run parallel administrations. In such areas, the army designates a certain area as a Naxal controlled area. They impose strict restrictions on people going in and out of these areas. Of course, this causes Pratham great difficulty. If an outsider goes into the Naxalite controlled areas, he is immediately arrested when he comes out. The army surmises that the very fact that someone is able to go in and come out means he must be assisting the Naxalites. The army has laid siege to these areas. No rations, school teachers, doctors, etc. are allowed in. Apparently, the Naxalites recruit teachers and have them run classes in the Government schools in these areas. Essentially, the Naxalites administer swathes of land in many districts in Chhatisgarh.

Anyway, coming back to Bastar - we reach Farasgaon at around 1PM. The route is lovely – we pass through lovely forests along the way. From time to time, forests give way to some farms and fields, with hills in the background. However, the forest would resume again and continue for miles. I have seen few places in India where you can go for so long without seeing human habitation. It is indeed refreshing to see. After a brief stop at the office, we go into a village where the local Pratham staff has organized a fair. We get a royal welcome and are treated to a local tribal dance, the name of which I cannot remember. A couple of men stand in the middle with a wooden hat shaped like a deer’s head, along with the deer’s antlers. Apparently, in the olden days, real deer heads were used. These men were the drummers, who keep beating the drums to a pulsating rhythm, while a group of women with hats adorned with flowers form a circle, dancing and revolving in their circle formation. It is lovely to see, especially in the setting, deep into the heart of Bastar. The dance feels authentic in a way that a similar dance in a tourist area just doesn’t. We spend quite a bit of time interacting with teachers and parents – both interactions give us considerable insight on the education related issues in the area.

In the evening, we visit 3 Read India volunteer classes. The first class is being held in a volunteer’s home. The house is a kaccha (mud) house but the floor is spotlessly clean. I have rarely seen such clean homes before. Gaurav had told me about the cleanliness of tribal households earlier – but it is really great to see. The volunteer is studying in Class 12 and again, has amazing dedication although his teaching is not of the highest quality. Part of the problem is that he is himself unable to read Hindi fluently. In tribal areas, language is often a problem because the home language is different from the language of instruction in the school. In this case, Hindi is the language of instruction in the school but Halwi, Chhatisgarhi and Gondi are the languages that the children speak at home. The review members suggest that in such cases, volunteer capacity needs to be built so that they themselves are comfortable with Hindi in order to teach children Hindi effectively. The second class we go to also has really dedicated volunteers, both of them studying in Class 12. The father is really happy that children in his house are studying and that his son is teaching and also receiving computer education.

During my time at Pratham, I have often wondered what it is that truly leads a volunteer to give 2 hours of her time everyday to teach children for free (they are being given computer education now, but in the past, they used to teach for free). The cynical answer is that deliberately or accidentally, we give volunteers false expectations that a Pratham experience certificate would help them get jobs or that they would get absorbed by the Government or that they would get absorbed by Pratham. However, I think a more optimistic and, I believe, accurate explanation is that teaching gives volunteers respect in the village. The teacher in a village is highly respected – especially in villages where most people are illiterate or have studied up to a very basic level. What truly motivates volunteers is still a mystery to me. Perhaps the creation of a sense of identity and the recognition they gain in the village is a big factor. I have been amazed at the level of dedication of the volunteers in Chhatisgarh. Most of them had weaknesses but they were all dedicated. You can tell from their interactions with children that they hold classes regularly. And it seems that the community has been giving them considerable support. It is really heartening to see. We came out of the last volunteer class – by now it is pitch dark. I gaze up to the sky and see millions of stars in a clear, unpolluted night sky. It is a lovely sight.

On the second day, we had wanted to visit a couple of schools in which volunteers were teaching during school hours. The drive is beautiful – we pass through light forests. The countryside has more fields interspersed with trees rather than it being the other way around. In the distance are rolling hills. Some of the most beautiful areas I have traveled in are Naxal affected – Puruliya, the route from Puruliya to Jamshedpur, West Midnapur. Somehow the Naxals end up choosing beautiful areas to operate out of! Along the way, we catch glimpses of village life – we see a group of men and women waist deep in a pool of water, fishing. The pool is actually dug up by the villagers and baby fish put in. Once the fish grow to a certain size, the villagers catch them. We seem mahua trees everywhere, whose flowers are used to create a liquor called mahua, commonly found in many tribal areas in Chhtisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhan. Bastar is a land of plenty – the team tells us how in peak mango season, you can see mangoes lying around everywhere on the ground around her and can buy them for very cheap rates. There is considerable money to be made too - during the tendu patta harvesting season (leaf with which beedis (Indian country cigar type cigarettes) are made), a tribal family can make 50-60,000 rupees in a couple of months, a substantial sum for rural India. I asked the team why then is there so much poverty in the areas. The answer is complex and sad. The tribals are simple people and hence there has been a lot of exploitation – often they are paid a pittance by the middlemen whom they sell their products to. There is massive corruption and exploitation – often money is deposited in banks but tribals are unaware about the use of those financial institutions, and the money is embezzled without the knowledge of the beneficiaries. Here, in this beautiful district, blessed with so many natural resources, I begin to understand some of the root causes of the Naxal insurgency.

We visit a couple of schools where the volunteer is teaching in school. Swami, the local zonal coordinator of the area points to a nearby forested hill and tells us in his disarmingly matter of fact way that there are three other schools behind the knoll. However, he tells us that with a big smile – “wo unka area hai” (“it is their area”). He says sheepishly that otherwise he would have taken us there. In such a tranquil, beautiful surrounding, it is hard to imagine that there is an armed insurgency lurking somewhere not too far away – an insurgency that has led to so much grief. But such is the complex story of India. This commences our visit and we make our way back to the state capital, Raipur and then onward to Delhi.

My World of Peace

2011-04-04T04:09:00.001-07:00

Ross Holzman with his team of peace makers visited Rajasthan and worked with Pratham children. The project introduces the concept of peace to the children and then allows them to let their creativity flow on paper

Saare jahaan se achcha...

The fun side of things

With thinking caps on

I Made This

For more details log on to-http://www.createpeaceproject.org/blog/

What's on top of our mother's minds

2011-02-27T22:56:00.000-08:00

Natasha Trivedi travels to Bihar to find out how mother’s involvement in their children’s education makes a world of a difference in their learning process.

This February, a handful of us from Pratham and the Aser Centre set off to Bihar as part of a workshop series to explore how mother’s literacy and an encouraging home environment could affect a child’s learning. The workshop was conducted by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and the ASER Centre. Having been to the vibrant city of Ajmer last July, for the first workshop in the series, I was excited about visiting Bihar this time.

According to my media exposure, Bihar is often depicted as a State with high crime, low literacy rates, politically turmoil ridden, often clouding our judgement and stereotyping the State as “backward”. I took it upon myself to speak as much as possible with the Bihari auto and taxi walas of Mumbai before leaving to get a feel of their views about their home.

Some said they could secure their children’s future in the city and run their homes with a stable income; while some said their children were more likely to attend school in Mumbai than back in Bihar. “Madame, main saat saal se ghar nahi gaya, kheton mein toh kuch aur hi mazaa hai...” or “Kaam dhanda udhar kum hee hai aur bacche bhi idhar school zyaada jate hain...” They asked me about my itinerary, advised me on places I should visit and told me about the not-to-miss ‘aloo-puri’ at the Patna station.

I was confused. The conversations made me wonder what anyone could possibly miss about places like Yusufpur or Kasba; unheard of with respect to any historical or geographic significance.

But I must say… Bihar took my breath away. I was instantly in love with the lush greenery and the simplicity of its people.

After spending a whole day in the train from Delhi to Kathihar, overlooking the green landscapes, lakes, rivers and livestock, we took a bus to our destination - a picturesque little town called Purnia just a two-hour drive away from the Indo-Nepal border.

On the first day, we were split into groups and sent to various villages. With my team, I went to a little village called Kajha where a Read India class was just completed and the children were sitting together waiting to get dispersed. We took pictures, heard a few children read and chatted with their teachers. I understood from them that the parents were very keen to send their children to school and feel strongly that their children should not lose out on education and other facilities provided. Teachers explained that student enrolment and attendance was healthy and that the parents were gradually getting more involved in their children’s homework, school attendance, parent teacher meetings and other daily activities.

The next day, my group went to another set of villages in the same district to witness the Mother’s Literacy Program. The mother to teacher ratio was 2:1 and the class was a hit with enthusiastic mothers from neighbouring villages learning basic language skills and math. On doing a few exercises with the mothers, it was evident that their mental math abilities were strong, and that they were quick with practical addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Concentrating on their writing skills, the mothers brought their infants to the class so as to not constantly run back home to attend to them. The atmosphere got serious as the women got busy working with the learning tools provided by Pratham.

They explained that the skills they learnt in this class enabled them to understand what their older children learnt in school and how there was a significant, noticeable increase in their interaction with their own children. A sense of pride was clearly evident as they could now sign on official documents than printing thumbs! They could also identify their names on lists and official statements. We were amusingly told that their husbands too were very keen that their wives learn and some of them even learnt how to write their names with a little help from their wives.

The JPAL training taught us the basics of how to conduct a Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) – a quick way to understanding the field layout and dynamics, and mapping inferences correctly., My group was sent to K Nagar to implement our newly honed skills. After understanding a basic village outline, we interacted with the people and surprisingly, here too the mothers were eager to send their children to school. Thus, learning was on top of every mother’s mind.

Post this interaction, we discussed our various experiences and decided to go into the field for one last time to test our newly gathered knowledge. With our simple tools that aided mapping functional literacy, basic literacy, general knowledge, storytelling and listening-comprehension we brainstormed on the different strategies one could use with the mothers for the next phase of intervention.

On returning back to Mumbai, I eagerly downloaded my camera chip onto the computer just to find one common emotion evident in all photos - that ‘yearn to learn look’ on each of the mother and child’s face.

Natasha Trivedi

Media and Communications Team, Mumbai, Pratham

It’s not just about Results

2011-01-17T02:03:00.000-08:00

Callie Lowenstein’s visit to Read India programmes reaffirms her belief that Pratham’s work goes beyond the metrics for improvement in literacy and numeracy. For it’s not just the results that are meaningful but the processes as well.

Graduation was looming and I knew I’d need to find a good plan, fast. I was interested in education, interested in development, but unsure where I’d find a job that fit. Having previously worked on the grassroots level in Africa and Latin America, I thought it was time to visit India—a new continent, a new language, an opportunity to work in a country whose significance on the international playing field would continue to grow in the years to come. More importantly, after working for tiny village-level NGOs, I hoped for an opportunity to work on a national scope, to understand how change could be effected on a broader level, and to contribute my skills to a mission whose importance I felt so deeply—the idea of ‘every child in school… and learning well.”
Coincidentally, in the spring of my senior year at college, I was taking a course on development economics, and was reading academic papers on educational outcomes in India. A number of these papers cited ASER, and described research partnerships undertaken in collaboration with an organization called Pratham—working in villages and cities across the country to ensure that children were learning basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. I applied for an internship position and before I knew it, I was off to Delhi.

But even having read the content of the Pratham website, I couldn’t have anticipated what was in store—the inspiration of meeting volunteers across the country and the joy of children learning new things and taking pride in their accomplishments. Indeed, the week after I landed in Delhi, an American friend enquired about Pratham’s volunteer-based programs and how we compensate them. I answered in the abstract, explaining that the work was voluntary, that the teachers chose to participate out of their own interest or motivation, and that it often provided young people with valuable work experience which they could later leverage in order to get a paying job. She didn’t seem to believe me, but having only just started at Pratham, I had nothing more to tell her. It wasn’t until I visited the programmes myself that I saw those answers in action, and saw just how powerful the grassroots model really is, both for the children and for the volunteers.

Through my work I have had the opportunity to visit Pratham classrooms in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and it has been these experiences that have reaffirmed the excitement I felt about Pratham when I first read about the organization in class a year ago. In Ahmedabad, I met an older woman who had lived in a conservative, traditional Hindu home before beginning work as a balwadi—or pre-school teacher’s assistant with Pratham. She described herself as meek and un-confident, living literally under the veil with no expectation of her own career, before she started teaching. But she found such empowerment as a teacher that during the Hindu-Muslim riots of 2002, she ventured into Muslim neighborhoods to ensure that her students went to their classes and to give those children an opportunity to express themselves freely in a tense, dangerous time. She is now a Center Director — the supervisor to a staff of teachers and the teacher of the older primary school students — and is pursuing a certificate in Early Childhood Education through Pratham Community College.

A girl named Aarthi in a village in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, was struggling to read before she started classes with Pratham’s Read India programme. With the encouragement of her volunteer teacher, a 20 year old college student from a nearby village, Aarthi has made such progress that I was able to watch as she helped a group of students in her class to learn the complex 148 letter Tamil alphabet.

Experiences such as these affirm my belief that Pratham’s work goes beyond the metrics for improvement in literacy and numeracy. For it is not just the results that are meaningful in Read India and Pratham’s other programmes, but the processes as well. Indeed, I have been pleased and impressed with the reading and math skills demonstrated by the children in centres I have visited. But I have been equally warmed by the pride Pratham students take in their learning and improvement, and the pleasure taken by volunteers in the improvement that they have helped to facilitate. Both the volunteers and the children enjoy deeply the process of learning, and it is this ongoing journey that makes their efforts meaningful.

For me, too, working with Pratham has been a powerful learning experience—both in observing the practices of teachers and students on the ground, and in participating in the management of a nation-wide education movement. I am learning about the work that goes into one of the world’s ‘best buy’ education NGOs, all the while experiencing the rich culture of India. What a wonderful chance to travel from Chennai to Anand, meeting women and men – many my age – who share my passion for education and my belief in the power of a grassroots movement. Time and again, in every centre I have visited, I have asked volunteers to explain their motivation for teaching, and each time they have answered the same way: “It makes me happy to see the children learning.” I cannot help but agree.

Callie Lowenstein is an Intern with Pratham’s Programme Review and Management Team, Delhi.

Pratham in the Rain

2010-11-07T06:43:00.000-08:00

Although I have always had a positive impression of Pratham as an institution, I have always imagined a Pratham class as something out of a dystopia. In my mind’s eye, I pictured a group of identical children listening to the monotonous droning of their teacher. This was certainly what I experienced in my schooling in the US, and it seemed only fair to expect nothing more from Pratham. As far as I was concerned, a Pratham school would have no ways to provide anything beyond the basics: the teachers would not have the resources that even the least pleasant of my teachers had at hand.

But when my mother, sister, and I actually visited the Pratham school (run from within a municipal school in Islampur, near New Delhi), I found that I had misled myself—in more than one way. First, in terms of the students themselves. I was surprised at how similar they were to my classmates: every one of them was different (as one would expect from any group of people) but none were foreign; it was easy to see similarities between each of them and someone I knew.

The style of education was perhaps the most shocking and inspiring. While the school itself was probably less comfortable than the American equivalent, I learned that amenities are neither vital nor necessarily conducive to a great education.

One of the two classes I visited was in a room with no furniture but a lot of student art on the walls. The power went out and the room became quite dark. The second class was out in an open hall, not far from the pouring rain but better lit than the first. In both classes, the students sat on the floor, bubbling with enthusiasm. Every once in a while, their teacher would call upon them to carry out some activity, and the students would jump up and participate. For example, a student would jump up and sing a small jingle naming a letter of the (Hindi) alphabet; another child would hop into the circle and pick out the letter the first one named. Later, the teacher asked the students to group themselves by some number, and the children would run around and hug each other to make a group. Those without a group would be out for this round, but back in the next.

It was one thing after another nonstop—I am not sure if the children even realised they were learning, but they certainly were! The way the Pratham teachers maintained a fast pace of skits and songs was impressive; it is clear they take their jobs seriously. It was telling that when the lunch bell rang, neither the teachers nor the students wanted to stop. I wish I could see such enthusiasm for education at my school.

Without air conditioning, tables, chairs, or even four walls, Pratham has given these youth an educational experience so great that I wish I could have attended their school instead of mine.

By Amitoj Singh

I came, I taught

2010-08-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

I came, I taught

By Dhwani Jain

The last three weeks spent at the Pratham School at Kadipur, Gurgaon were the most gratifying and eventful of my life. Here Pratham tests the government school students for their English and Hindi capabilities and the weak ones are enrolled into the Pratham class where Pratham teachers work on them. I got an opportunity to teach English to children from class 3, 4 and 5 who were lacking in the language.

Pratham provides the teachers with a weekly manual that clearly specifies all that’s to be taught for the weak. Some interesting Pratham material is ‘note cards’ with pictures of children doing different activities and ‘flash cards’ with alphabets. Such fun material makes it very easy for the teacher to teach and the children to grasp concepts. If a first time teacher like me, with no teaching background could grasp the teaching methodology and successfully deliver at the class, I think, anyone can join Pratham and engage in teaching.

Every morning, a recapitulation of the previous class would help the children revise all that they learnt the previous day. I was thoroughly impressed with the kind of structured learning module we followed at these classes. Very gratifying was the fact that they quickly caught on with the lessons and moved ahead at a great pace. Each day a new letter was introduced ensuring ample practice and recapitulation. I was surprised with myself, just how quickly I moved into the role of a teacher and was doing rather well! It’s most satisfying for a teacher to see her student learning well.

Lunch Time: this was the best time to bond with the children. I would engage with them by playing their games which soon became my favourite too. One interesting game worth a mention is “Gabbar Says”. All children would stand in a circle and if I said, “Gabbar says dance”, everyone would have to start dancing. Those who would fail to comprehend the activity correctly would step out of the game. What a fun way to learn English!

I also leant games like kabaddi and baraf pani (children act frozen at the call of baraf and get back to motion with paani).

One observation: during their formal daytime school, the children would often make excuses to get out of the class and while away time. However, while in the Pratham class, they would just not want to leave. Now, having spent time with Pratham, I really believe that if every child got the kind of structured and fun way of education that Pratham delivers, no one would ever think of dropping out from school. I’m grateful I got an opportunity to connect the wonderful work that Pratham does.

VOICE of the VOICELESS:

2010-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

“Our greatest inheritance is our democracy and the freedom of expression it gives us. Indeed, often those who are loud are better organized, better funded, and better served by the system. If the media only purveys their viewpoint, who will speak for the silent majorities?
One organization that does work for the upliftment of the silent majority is Pratham.”
- Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India - At the CNN IBN Indian of the Year 2009 award function.

Speech is God's gift to mankind. Through speech a human being conveys his thoughts, sentiments and feeling to others. Freedom of speech and expression is thus a birth right. Article 19(1)(a) of Indian Constitution legitimizes the right to freedom of speech and expression of all Indian Citizens.

However as our honorable PM rightly pointed out there is a vast majority which is “silent”. Children comprise of a large portion of the “silent” majority. No one listens to them as they do not comprise of a lucrative vote bank.

11 year old Murli, living in Yazali village in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh is one of the members of this “silent” majority. Not only due as to the lack of muscle or money power, but also because he is speech impaired.

Murli came to meet the project facilitator of Bal Panchayat[1] with his grandmother. He did not go to school but expressed a desire to run for the elections in the village. In the election process the candidates were supposed to campaign and convince the voters to vote for them. We were extremely apprehensive about Murli’s participation because we were not sure if he could campaign and convince the other children. If he was selected to be a part of the Bal Panchayat how would he participate in the meetings? These were the questions which bothered us, but Murli kept smiling at us, his conviction was rock solid.

It was an uphill task for Murli, he did not have the edge over his friends due to his inability to speak and impress his vote bank. The Bal Panchayat elections were coming close, Murli’s competitors used speech and songs to impress the vote bank. Murli religiously went to each and every house of the village with the Pratham facilitator and used her as his voice. He appealed to every child to cast a vote in his favour. He had developed a unique way of talking to them and they understood him.

The Election Day had finally arrived. When Murli came to the polling booth, he had a serene look with a warm smile. While his competitors waited for the results anxiously, Murli was extremely composed.

Bal Panchayat* (children’s village council) aims at operationalizing the child’s right to Participation. Modelled on the same spirit as the Gram Panchayat, a Bal Panchayat is a form of council for the children by the children. It works as an open forum enabling children to express their opinion about any issues or concerns and be listened to. Bal Panchayat also give children the opportunity to debate and collectively try to find solutions to their problems. The project is currently operational across 60 villages in Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh.

The moment of triumph was when Murli stood 2nd in the elections beating 8 of his competitors. 72 children of the 200 voters had chosen Murli as their leader. He was born silent, was supposed to be a part of the “silent” majority, but he chose not to be. He is committed to raising his voice on the issues related to out of school children through the Bal Panchayat.

As part of the Yazali Bal Panchayat, Murli now regularly sits with his fellow members to collectively find solutions to the problems faced by the children of their village: poor access to quality education, child labour, lack of basic sanitary facilities and clean water generating health problems are the key issues that the Bal Panchayat has identified.

Immediately after the elections, the children have initiated action for the school development. They decided to make the list of all the children who are either out of school or don’t attend school regularly and handed the list to the village’s Sarpanch, the school headmaster and appealed for their support in ensuring that every child is in school in Yazali. The 10 members have also written a letter to the school headmaster to oppose the transfer of a teacher from their school.

Murli (second from right) with grandmother, friends and Yazali Bal Panchayat President (first from left) after the elections.

Murli has never been to school but he smiles brightly when we ask him if he would want to, eagerly looking at his grandmother for approval. If he chooses to, Murli will join our nearby Pratham shelter next year and will be given the opportunity to learn the basics of reading and writing, which for him means the ability to fully communicate with others and engaging with the outside world. In the meantime, he will be referred to a speech therapist in Bapatla to assess whether his impairment can be improved.

Murli is a representative of the vast “silent majority” which is unrepresented and unnoticed. No one could have imagined an out of school speech impaired Murli to become a leader of the village. Today he is the hero of Yazali and is committed to being the change. He is indeed the voice of the voiceless.

*Bal Panchayat (children’s village council) aims at operationalizing the child’s right to Participation. Modelled on the same spirit as the Gram Panchayat, a Bal Panchayat is a form of council for the children by the children. It works as an open forum enabling children to express their opinion about any issues or concerns and be listened to. Bal Panchayat also give children the opportunity to debate and collectively try to find solutions to their problems. The project is currently operational across 60 villages in Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh.

By Uma Subramanian and Antonia Achache - Mumbai

Picture Story: A trip to Orissa

2010-04-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I made my trip to Orissa that was long overdue. I want to share with you the interesting things I saw and learnt....from children, teachers, villagers and sometimes complete strangers. We left from Cuttuck city at about 11 am to go to Khurda district which was 3 and a half hours away. We crosses a huge river or rather what was left of it....(this was in the winter months...wonder what it is like in the summers)

Our first visit was at a village where the class was already in session. Seeing us in the classroom, the parents came to talk to us. The man on the far left is the Sarpanch of the village.

Reality check: The lady told me in Odiya “I know in the city you need to press a button and the water comes gushing out. Do you find what I’m doing fascinating?”

He refused to smile for the camera. However when he finally agreed, this is what he gave me.

Fun Along the Way: The Pratham team and I stopped by a hot spring which is now a picnic spot on our way to another village.

Nearing Dusk: It was almost sundown by the time we reached our second last stop of the day. A child learning how to count using the Bandal tilli method.

Our last stop of the day: In a village where the volunteers have made two groups; one with the older children in Std 3,4,5 and the other group with younger children from Std 1 and 2.

The Spirit of Pratham: In the same village, soon after we arrived, there was a power cut. In a matter of minutes, the lantern were removed and the class continued.
This is when you realize…. You are part of something very big.

By Anamara Baig: Mumbai

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (concluding part)

2010-02-25T22:34:00.000-08:00

Bangalore

I reunited with Jen in West Bengal. There, we spent a week volunteering at the Mother Teresa Home for mentally disabled women, teaching college graduates English and interview skills in Kolkata, trekking on the Nepali border and of course, tasting tea in Darjeeling. We flew from Communist Kolkata (where the jute workers, encouraged by the CPM government, have been on an indefinite strike since the 14th December) to ultra modern Bangalore, the pinnacle of India’s booming IT industry. The silicon-coated heart of India was immediately present from the shuttle-bus airport transfer. Here, Infosys, the Indian IT giant has its HQ. Established less than 20 years ago, today the company has over 100,000 employees and revenues of US$4bn. Its clients currently include nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies. Its 32-hectare campus (which we passed but unfortunately failed the stringent security checks to have a snoop around!) comprises of shiny glass and steel structures sprouting from perfectly manicured lawns.

Despite this glimpse of an alternative India, the wealth has not spread throughout Bangalore, or indeed, Karnataka, the state in which it lies. 62% of Bangalore’s population are ‘Indo-nationals’, meaning they originate from other Indian states as far as Punjab, Rajasthan and Assam. The majority of them who fill the vacancies at Tata Consultancy, Goldman Sachs, Intel and the likes are India’s privileged few who have been to private schools and one of India’s up-and-coming universities (at a fee). From the young professionals we spoke to, it appears only a limited list of science-based degrees, such as Engineering and Computer Science, hold any value in India. A reflection of this system is portrayed eloquently in the recent hit Bollywood movie, ‘The 3 Idiots’. As Arindam Chaudhuri, editor in chief of Planman Media comments, “the film has a strong message to the many idiots running the education system of this country and to the millions of idiots who accept this system without questioning.” Fact is, many able arts candidates are paralysed by the lack of job prospects open to them when they graduate and are instead forced to study engineering or computer science. The drop-out rate is not high, but the student suicide rate is.

In Bangalore, Pratham has been working in collaboration with the Akshara Foundation (www.aksharafoundation.org) since 2000. In Pratham’s office in the Bangalore suburbs, Ashok, the well-spoken Chairperson showed us the impressive database (www.klp.org.in) by which they track 725,000 children across Karnataka. The aim is to quadruple that number by the end of this year and to reach 13 million in 3 years time. The Pratham-Akshara interventions are 60 sessions long in, for example, Kanada (the state’s first language), Urdu, Maths and English, over 3 to 5 months. Each child is tested at the beginning and end of the programme to monitor their progress. Pratham-Akshara don’t just work in Bangalore but across Karnataka and particularly in the North, in areas like Bidar and Gulbarga which have much lower HDI ratings and are mainly dependent on agriculture.

In the afternoon Tasmiya, who is in charge of Shivnagar district, took us to visit a government Urdu higher primary school in Frager town. On the bumpy rickshaw ride through Bangalore, she told us how over the last 10 years she’s seen the Pratham-Akshara collaboration grow from serving just 20 school drop-outs between 7-14 years old to over 350,000 children in Bangalore today. At the Muslim school we met the librarians who showed us the impressive collection of Urdu (the first language in Muslim families), Kanada (the first language in Karnataka), Hindi (supposedly the national language, though this is contested down south), Tamil (spoken to the East in Tamil Nadu), Telugu (to the North in Andhra Pradesh) and English. The boys in the class were extremely enthusiastic to read us English stories, particularly one eager boy named Asif. His father was a rickshaw driver although he had aspirations to study Engineering and work for one of the proliferation of high-tech companies, like Infosys. Ten years ago, this dream would have been just that. Today, with Pratham’s extra tuition and English language materials, the son of a rickshaw driver’s dream, like many of his classmates, can indeed become a reality.

From here Jen and I made our way to Gokarna to spend a few days at the coast before returning to hectic London. It’s been an absolutely thrilling journey, travelling around India with Pratham and experiencing a diverse and genuine flavour of India. We’d like to thank everyone that’s made it possible for us to have this incredible experience – all of the Pratham coordinators and the team back in Mumbai, especially Anamara. Thank you and Namaste!

By Olivia Toye (UK)

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (8)

2010-02-21T22:34:00.001-08:00

Assam – 2nd Feb

When asked what my travel arrangements were for this evening I received an applause of laughter when I mentioned I was taking the 10.30 overnight Kanchanjung Express train. ‘What’s the problem?’ I enquired. ‘Oh that train was held up the other night in Kokrajhar. No probs though, sure it’ll run fine tonight!’ It appears it’s not just the northern oil-producing area around Digboi where the kidnappings happen. Apparently there’s also trouble to the east, on the Bhutan border, where there’s ‘just some people on the independence bandwagon’ according to Abhijit, the witty well-educated political scientist of the office.

The Assamese state symbol is the Rhino. Abhijit mused that the Rhino’s slow pace suits the Assamese attitude to life but this description certainly wasn’t fitting with Surjya’s programme for me for the day! We began at 7am. The car was packed with Surjya (the DRC head), Tapashi, (smart working Mum for the joint Pratham-ASER survey), Mukut (Kamrup district coordinator), Abdul (the mad driver) and me (the eager English girl). We left Guwahati for Hajo, a small town 35km away where we visited 2 Pratham Learning Centres (PLCs). 120 children from the 1st to 5th Standard (6 to 11 years) attend classes at the 2 centres before school from 8 – 9.45am. Next we visited Suwal Kucha, nicknamed ‘Silk City’ by Mukut (despite the fact it was more of a village), where the PLC runs weekend classes. In this area silk weaving is the major employer – and indeed the main occupation of the Pratham volunteers here – so a visit to a silk factory seemed fitting.

Back in the car we drove at the pace of Abdul’s Indian techno music to Darang, 15km from Bhutan. Passing tea plantations on the way we crossed a loud All Assamese Students Union (AASU) protest. A large concern in this district is the rising food and commodity prices which severely hurt local people working in the plantations, on very minimal weekly salaries. On arrival at the government school that Pratham works in association with, I was able to meet 8 volunteers from the neighbouring villages. Sitting on the grass in the playground, I asked them what their greatest challenge had been. They were unanimous in their opinion that terrorism though it is often used, is not a good enough excuse for poor education in the state. Rather the socio-economic issues – such as alcoholism in poor communities – is disabling their efforts.

After some fantastic Assamese tea at Mukut’s family house, we began the 100km drive back to Guwahati. I began pondering everything I’d learnt. Despite such large challenges – from political to socio-economic – nothing deters Pratham’s reach to the most beautiful region of India I’ve visited so far. I thoroughly recommend a visit!

By Olivia Toye (UK)

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (7)

2010-02-17T01:32:00.000-08:00

Assam - 1st Feb 2010

After Republic Day, Jen and I spilt. I took a flight to Assam, in the far North East, while Jen braved the trains through Uttar Pradesh. I’ve come to Assam for the wedding of Monali and Dan. Although they both live ultra modern lives in London, now not a single Hindu tradition was neglected. These included the ritual washing of Dan’s feet with bananas and curd by Monali’s family and of course, the attendance of over 500 guests who the poor couple had to greet individually over 4 hours!

Arriving into Assam could not be more of a contrast from hectic Delhi. The capital city, Guwahati, is tiny in Indian terms with less than a million people. Only a short run with my friend Rahul, from the plush resort where we were staying took us through gorgeous green rice paddy fields enclosed by bamboo and palm groves with an idyllic mountain backdrop. In upper Assam, north of Guwahati, there are endless beautifully manicured tea plantations which produce a sixth of the world’s tea (check your tea bag packet now – it’s likely to originate here!). And dotted around the state are several national parks which protect a phenomenal range of wildlife from tigers to Assam’s unique one-horned rhino. The people who look more Tibetan or Nepali are said to be the friendliest in India. So with all this, where’s the rush of tourists?

Some Assamese tribal groups are fabled as head-hunting warriors but that’s not the problem today. In recent decades many ethnic-lingustic groups have jostled – often violently – to assert themselves in the face of immigration, governmental neglect and heavy-handed defence policies. Everyday 'The Assamese Tribune' is filled with stories of kidnappings and violent clashes between terrorist groups and patrol police. The paper reported that there were ‘only’ 1297 incidents in which 264 civilians and 42 members of the security forces were killed in 2009. Maybe a ‘significant improvement’ but still seems quite large to me.

Pratham’s been present in Assam since 2006 and now works in 19 of the 23 districts. The four remaining districts are both inaccessible and the most dangerous as they border with fractious Nagaland (another Indian North Eastern province with similar ideas of independence) and Myanmar. The Indian and Burmese governments have been professing for years to work together to combat militant groups but have yet failed to turn talks into action. Pratham runs 3 main programmes here: the summer camp which accommodated over 500,000 children over a 4-week-interactive-learning programme last year; reading enhancement project active in 82 out of 145 blocs for over 200,000 children; and independent Pratham learning centres, PLCs which run both R2L and L2R programmes for over 40,000 pupils.

With the wedding party I spent a weekend at Kaziranga National Park where we took a safari, riding on the back of elephants with the hope of seeing one of the park’s roaming tigers. Though, as it turned out we would have been better staying in Guwahati – on arrival back in the capital we heard that day a tiger had escaped from the city’s zoo and was on the prowl! Luckily the guests escaped before we had any feline encounters and John, my jolly Irish friend, and I met Surjya the DRC leader in Assam. With a mouth full of blood red paan (betel leaf with powdered tobacco) he explained to us about the spider web of interconnected issues in the state. The proliferation of tribal groups here means lingustical problems in some areas. For instance, increasing ethnic consciousness led the Bodo people to resent the prevalence of Assamese over their native Bodo language. Consequently there was a major Bodo insurgency that was only settled in 2004-5 with the creation of a partially self-governing ‘Bodoland’ in Northwestern Assam. The school syllabus is still in Assamese however which is distinctly different from the Bodo prounanciation. Pratham therefore works to ensure these children have special attention to ensure they do not fall behind.

By Olivia Toye - UK

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (6)

2010-02-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

DELHI:

I’m going to tell you a story about Abid. He’s 12 years old and comes from a village called Akhtar in Bihar, India’s poorest state. Three months ago he was sold by Akhtar’s Pradhan, the village leader, to a factory owner in Delhi. The factory owner promised a golden future for Abid: teaching him a skill that would stand him in good stead for a career in the big city. The state infrastructure is so poor in Bihar that Abid has never been to school. Abid’s poverty-stricken parents had no choice but to send Abid to the factory owner receiving a mere 500 rupees (roughly 6 pounds) in return. However upon arrival in Delhi, Abid found quite a different fate from the golden gateway he’d been promised.

Abid starts work at 9am everyday. He works in one of the karhanas, small factories, in the slum of Nabi Karim, applying glue to make ladies purses. He gets 1 or 2 hours rest on a day that lasts until midnight… sometimes 1… sometimes 2am. Abid is not paid but all his immediate needs, food and lodging, are taken care of within the constraints of the karhana’s walls. He’s made just one sacrifice – his freedom.

Abid is just one of Delhi’s (approximately) 50,000 illegal child labourers. With the help of middlemen, these children are taken, as young as 6 years old, from India’s poorest villages to be entrapped into a life of virtual slavery in small factories making shoes, bags, clothing and even metal items. As well as evidence of physical abuse there have also been cases of sexual abuse. This grave problem is not unique to Delhi but is prevalent across the country. Government raids on such illegal factories have been irregular and half-hearted.

In August 2009, Pratham set up a drop-in centre for child labourers in the karhanas of the Nabi Karim slum. This centre provides not only a place for the children to study (often for the first time) but also to play and to sleep in a warm and friendly environment. The centre is providing some hope for children like Abid who, at 7pm at night, in his one hour’s break from stitching purses, was completing his maths homework. Arshi Sayyed and her team of 4 other women are currently working towards rehabilitating the children with the help of the government as well as to inform the unknowing Pradhan and parents of the fate of their children in the glistening ‘metro city’.

But the difficulties faced at the centre are severe. At Nabi Karim, Arshi explained to us the challenges she faces on a daily basis. “Once I was held at gunpoint by a dhaba (roadside restaurant) owner. He threatened to kill me because one 8 year old boy who was working for him, was coming to our centre.” Starting as a volunteer Balwadi teacher in Mumbai, Arshi soon became convinced her passion was working for children. She left behind her parents' dreams of settling down with a family and joined Pratham full-time. Now she coordinates the programme against child labour in Delhi.

It is clear this dreadful injustice can’t be resolved overnight. But if Pratham can at least put a smile on Abid’s face in his sparse free time – then a bridge to cross this channel is already under construction.

By Olivia Toye, UK

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (5)

2010-02-08T23:01:00.001-08:00

Gujarat to Rajasthan:

After a few days off in Diu, a tiny island of limestone cliffs and rocky coves in south Gujarat, we decided to venture north to Rajasthan. Sadly, Balthasar and Patrick announced to me (15 minutes prior to departure) that we were leaving....just as I had proudly washed the majority of my wardrobe - not exactly ideal before a 24 hour bus journey!

The advantage of taking local buses in India is there's no need to book ahead. In fact, as we discovered upon boarding our interconnecting bus in Rajkot at 1.30am, there's no word for 'full' in Hindi! Balthasar commanded, 'we HAVE to get in the bus'. So we clambered on, backpacks secured like tortoises, to find many bemused, if slightly sleepy, faces looking up at us. No seats available but 'no problem' the gangway was a fitting alternative (and in fact the most comfortable of the night). We also sampled lying in the cockpit behind the driver, and contemplated the roof but it was already taken up with hessian sacks brimming with fresh green chilies.

As the sun rose, I glimpsed my first sights of Rajasthan. Cattle-drawn carts were replaced by tall camels and the lush green landscape became much more arid and stark. This is of course the state of the Great Thar Desert. Our visit was to start in the blue city of Jodhpur, where I met my companion Jen. I'll leave Jen to introduce herself...

Jen's Journey: Jodhpur

Arriving in an unknown city at 4am wouldn't normally be on my wish list, but I was extremely happy sipping masala chai at a roadside dhaba just outside Jodhpur. YES, I had arrived! As the morning sunshine warmed Olivia, me and the fort of Jodhpur on a mountain just behind us, we met Radhe. Radhe, Jodhpur’s DRC coordinator, coordinates projects in all of the 1617 villages in the district. Through our conversations on Rajasthan and Pratham’s history there, we discovered a lot about Radhe. Starting as a volunteer librarian 7 years ago, he had been promoted rapidly and now has been recommended for a part time MBA to begin alongside his Pratham work. Throughout the day we saw the importance of such opportunities to the volunteers who contributed to Pratham.

Rajasthan is an extremely interesting district; not only is Hindi rarely spoken but we found that their educational possibilities are also highly dependent on the agricultural conditions. Sufficient rain brings wealth to the region. However poor monsoons over the past 4 years meant children having to drop out of school to help their parents, particularly in the dry North West. Pratham is extremely busy; running Read to Learn, Learn to Read (see Olivia’s blog) and Balwadi programs. 10 days previously, Pratham had launched ‘Navjeevan Yojna’, a project in collaboration with the local government providing an education and board scheme for female child labourers. When we showed interest in this programme, Radhe arranged for this to be included in our visit within minutes.

Our visit began at ‘Navjeeva Yojna' where 45 girls had been selected by Pratham’s survey of Bastis (urban slum areas constituting 250 families). These girls between 6 to 16 years received full boarding and lodging as well as lessons in Marwadi, Hindi, Mathematics and English over a six month period with the objective of enrolling them in a government school. There we met Santosh - her father was a shoe maker on the streets of Jodhpur. She worked as a rag-picker, a seemingly excruciating occupation given her severely handicapped nature – she was stunted and one leg did not function. Wondering what her future may hold, having never been to school at the age of 15, she now at least has a chance of some education. Whether she will ever get one of the few government jobs reserved for India’s large handicapped population, is however uncertain.

On our way to the villages we stopped off at the DRC office where we met 12 young students working on their computer skills and two MBA students working with Pratham on their MBA internship. We had fun testing the volunteer teaching materials, using the 'purchasing game(Bazaar)' to learn the Hindi names of choice fruits.....very helpful for our haggling back in Jodhpur! Another hot and dusty ride later through rural Rajasthan, we arrive at the first village school, Devaliya. This was a prime example of Pratham’s growth in its focus bloc; it had been open just 10 days but had 20 children already on its register. The single village volunteer offered the Balwadi program: play to learn and health education. Jadiwal Kallum, our second village, had four volunteers and decidedly more lessons, but was again brand new. We met two of the volunteer sisters, Sumitra and Anita Choudhary teaching a class of 31 children of 4 - 6 years. We loved the children in this class, they were so well behaved. When we asked them in Hindi, if they wanted chocolate sweeties none put up their hands. We had to reassure them that we really wanted to give them away!

The day rounded up with a great cup of Masala chai (yes I think you note the theme) in the DRC office and chats with Radhe and some of the other Pratham workers. It had been an amazing experience - seeing the projects, the children, the effectiveness and energy of the Pratham organisation. I was impressed and keen to see more. Delhi will be the next stop - we'll catch up then.....

By Olivia and Jen (UK)

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (4)

2010-01-27T22:36:00.000-08:00

Jan 12th - Ahmedabad

Explaining to the station guard at 5am that it was really necessary for me to have four accomplices to help me board the train – my translator, driver, bag carrier, general protector – was at first, a challenge. But once I’d charmed him with my awful Hindi, the initially moody guard lightened up! As ever a crowd formed and when they learnt I was on the way to Gujarat, the neighbouring province, they started teaching me some essential phrases. Yes, that’s right, moving just 15km North means a new language to master… or not! In Gujarat, 60% of people work in agriculture, 25% in small industry, such as textiles and stone carving, and the remaining 15% are casual workers in heavy industry meaning great uncertainty for a large number of Gujarati families.

No ‘4-wheeler’ to collect me this time, I was sent the directions to the Pratham Centre near Ahmedabad by text. Instructions looked quite clear to me, but apparently it was not. After a wild rickshaw ride with Balthasar and Patrick, who I’d met on the bus to Aurangabad, the driver proudly pulled up and announced ‘school’. Indeed it was a school, just not the one we were after! But ‘no problem’ the headmaster of the school kindly stopped his lesson and accompanied us to the Pratham Centre along a maze of winding alleyways.

The Pratham Centre, set up in 2005, runs two daily sessions from 9-11am and 1-3pm (for children who attend the afternoon and morning government classes respectively) from ages 6 to 12 teaching Gujarati, Maths, Environmental Sciences and Health and Hygiene classes. Children are tested once every 6 months to monitor their progress. Quite unlike my village visits, when I entered the classroom the children hardly noticed me as they were so absorbed in counting straws as part of their Maths class. 11am came and the first session scurried off to their government schools.

Sitting on mats on the tiled floor, pencil sharpenings surrounding us, Gauri, the centre head, told me how she has seen the centre grow from just 10 pupils to serving over 100 today. The objective of the centre is to give all children the chance to benefit from the same quality of tuition that they would receive in a private school. Every 6months, Gauri and her team go out into the community of 1200 families to expand the centre’s reach. Testing children in their home shows parents what their children's current level of reading, writing and comprehension is and what could be attained if the child attended Pratham’s classes on a daily basis. Foram, a 9 year old in the third standard, is an example of a star student who over the past four years has continually excelled in the government system as a result ofPratham’s tuition. As the afternoon class arrived I glanced over to the adjoining room to see Patrick and Balthasar actively attempting to teach the children ‘have you ever seen a penguin come to tea?’ Bemused but enthusiastic as ever, all the children, me included, learnt a new song that day!

Olivia Toye - UK

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (3)

2010-01-21T03:57:00.000-08:00

DAY 3/4 – NANDURBAR – 9/10th Jan 2010

Although I’ve only moved a six-hour-bus-journey North (three hours had there been better kept, less mountainous roads), my surroundings have changed quite significantly. I’m in Nandurbar, a town with a population of 40,000. On arrival at the bus stop the poverty here is immediately starker than in Aurangabad. I’m greeted by goggle-eyed, barefoot children with dirty but smiling faces as they feast their eyes on their first living white-skinned being!

Again, the primary source of income in the rural areas is agriculture (coconuts, rice, sugar, etc) but in the town, by contrast, there is little work. Unlike Aurangabad, no large multinational has outsourced its production here. And there’s no hope of tourism – Nandurbar does not even feature on the map of my Lonely Planet. Instead, I am told that many people find work in construction in the neighbouring province of Gujarat, just 15km away. This again leads to problems associated with migration as children are constantly uprooted. However, the main problem facing education in the region is the variety of different tribal languages – there are a massive 179 languages spoken across this country of 1.1 billion people. In Nandurbar district, this means that many children start school at the age of 6 (first standard) not knowing either Hindi or Marathi. Evidently these children are at a serious disadvantage where the school syllabus is in Marathi thus leading to high drop-out levels. In January last year, Pratham started a programme called, ‘Boli Bhasha’(‘own mother-tongue’) in order to teach children from different tribes, Marathi language. ‘Boli Bhasha’ is a fast-learning project using activity based learning.

In Nandurbar, I was fortunate to coincide with the monthly State meeting of 25 Pratham employees from across the Maharastra District. It was Saturday evening but that didn’t stop anything – after a splendid sampling of the local food I retired to bed – but Vishvajit, the state head, and his team worked on until 3am. Pratham UK should take note of this phenomenal Indian work ethic! Sunday I woke up early so decided to take a walk around the town with its beautiful collection of handmade kite stalls… but it wasn’t long before one of the Pratham workers spotted me. No time for strolling, the ‘4-wheeler’ had arrived to take us on our visits. In the car I was introduced to Pandit who, little to his knowledge, would become my personal translator for the day. He’d learnt English as part of ‘Operation Mobilisation India’ where he worked for 3 years as a Christian missionary. I would also later learn his family had converted to Christianity after a gentleman from South Korea came to his village in 1962 and built one of the 30 churches in the area.

Nandurbar DRC covers 85,000 children across 1059 villages where Pratham has implemented Marati, Maths and English classes. The first village we visited was Avthipada where, to the whole class’ entertainment, I was taught the Marati alphabet by a 5 year old boy named Sujit. In this village I also met a women’s committee who collectively pooled money in order to provide lunch time food for the children and a pre-school care for 3 to 5 year olds. In MotheKadvan village I met Pryanka who spoke excellent Marati, having come through Pratham ‘Boli Bhasha’ programme. When she started school at 5, she only knew her tribal language ‘Mauchi’. I was extremely impressed to realize that this 10 year old knew more languages than me – Mauchi, Marathi, Hindi and now thanks to Pratham, English! By the time we got to the third village, Nangipada, I was beginning to be weary but the children weren’t – oh no! I arrived as 5 girls were acting out a drama show, written by Pratham in order to teach the numbers 1 to 100 in Marathi and English.

Sitting on the cool floor in Pandit’s clay-walled home eating spicey nut chutney with home-made chapatti, Pandit told me of his vision for the future. He has seen Pratham’s reach double in size over the past 3 years. In the next 3 years he told me he will go ‘door-to-door’ to spread Pratham’s message and set up projects in currently inaccessible locations. I know with the determination I’ve witnessed among Pratham employees and volunteers in only the past 3 days ‘sub kutch miliga’,‘everything is possible’.

Olivia Toye - UK

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (2)

2010-01-14T22:02:00.000-08:00

DAY 2 – 8TH JAN

I was awoken, not by the constant hooting of cars, not by the RepublicDay parade preparations, but instead by the cow outside my window! No matter how large and developed it appears, no Indian city is complete without the random dotting of goats, pigs, cows and chickens in the most unexpected locations! I decided to attempt a run as the winter sun was not yet at its most powerful. The hotel manager proudly pointed me to a ‘sports area’ up the road – my eyes lit up at the prospect of being able to run without the constant fear of being knocked over by a rickshaw! As ever my attempt at exercise proved great amusement for the locals who were playing cricket on the field. I stopped to chat to a particularly inquisitive group of girls. They were from the surrounding villages and now studying IT at the college in Aurangabad. They had high aspirations to work for one of the many multinational companies in one of India’s IT hubs, like Hyderabad or Bangalore. I was very impressed to learn that girls made up the majority of their class. After I entertained them with my limited Hindi phrases and they took photos on their phones (standard practice), I continued on my run.

Sachin arrived to collect me from my hotel at 10am as planned. Again we took his bike out into the villages 40km out of Aurangabad. In the first village, Sonkheda, I was warmly greeted by the 200 children at the school with flowers, berries, a coconut and the most gorgeous smiles. In this school, 190 of the children are going through Pratham's ‘Read to Learn’ programme and 10 take the ‘Learn to Read’ programme. There is a test to divide children up between the two classes, the former being the more advanced and where Pratham hopes that all children will advance to. Each level of the programme lasts for 3months at a time and the children are tested once a month to monitor their progress. In Sonkheda I met Sriram Wakale, the village elder, who in extremely impressive English told me how these children are thebuilding blocs of India and Pratham is the cement between these blocs. In the second village, Sarai, I spoke with the head teacher who had concerns about the attendance of children in school, particularly inmigrant families. She assured me however that attendance ratings are improving now, following a government campaign to ensure all children between 5 – 10 years are going to school daily.

Waving ‘Namaste’ to the adorable smiles, we went on to see the second of the ten day teacher training days at a nearby centre. There I was welcomed with the honest enquiry from one gentleman, ‘are you instructing us Madame’? To mine, and Sachin’s, astonishment, the head of the training college decided my visit would be a fantastic opportunity for me to, not just participate, but to instruct the English, and to my horror, the Science classes! In the first three English classes we discussed differences in educational systems, politics, culture, food, clothing, and India as a growing power. In the science class I managed to hand over my responsibility to Pratham’s volunteer Dr. Gabhir, who led the class on separation of liquids. In each class I received a glorious welcome ceremony and word of thanks, as if the queen was visiting. Later, over chai, I was told by Sachin that ‘the guest is God’ in India. How lucky I am to be a guest here!

By Olivia Toye - UK

On Road: Stories by Olivia Toye (1)

2010-01-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

Olivia Toye has recently graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from OxfordUniversity. Before embarking on her career she is volunteering with Pratham. Here’s an ongoing day by day account of her experience in India as she discovers more about the work we do.

DAY 1 – 7TH JAN

To set the scene, I’m in Maharastra, India’s second most populousstate. Within the state lies Mumbai, India’s booming financial capital. But that’s not to say the state as a whole is rich – far fromit. Aurangabad, from where I start my journey, is a bustling city ofnearly a million people. Like numerous Indian metropolises, Aurangabad’s traditional industries such as the manufacture of Paithani silk saris are dying out in favour of consumer-led demand for beer and electricals from companies like Kingfisher and Videocon. There is also a large military base on the outskirts of the city and (fromwhat I saw) an underdeveloped tourist market at the World Heritage site of the Ellora caves, which date from 600AD just 30km away. In contrast a step outside the city to the villages is like going back a century in time. The sole source of income is agriculture, including cotton, sugar, wheat and mangoes, using traditional farming methods like ox-drawn carts.

The minute I’d put my bags down on the hotel bed there was a knock atthe door – Sachin, the head of Aurangabad’s District Resource Centre(DRC) had arrived. No time for a rest – we were going straight to see the projects in action. After nearly throttling myself with the scarf from my Salwar kameez on Sachin’s motorbike, we arrived at the centre. There I spoke to two IT teachers who explained to me about the different programmes running. The Aurangabad District covers a staggering 100,000 children across 1,200 villages. As well as running its own classes, Pratham collaborates with the government schools to provide materials and teacher training.

Enough chatting, we were off on Sachin’s bike again, dodging cattle, goats and buses, to see the classes taking place. As we arrived in the first village, Takli, we saw the preparations for the 26th January(Republic Day) in the playground. One thing I found all Pratham volunteers had in common was their absolute dedication to teaching alongside hard and time-consuming professions. I met one of the 1,200Pratham volunteers giving a reading lesson, as part of the 'Read to Learn' programme run by Pratham for 6 to 14 year olds. He was aPyschology student from a nearby village who liked doing social work. We then moved on to the second village, Dhamangaon Tanda. Here the Pratham volunteer was a farmer. These children were certainly energetic! After doing a counting game I was told they were going to show me an ‘English poem’… this turned out to be a very lively rendition of the Hokey Cokey!!

By Olivia Toye - UK

Choice

2009-12-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

Standing on my balcony, I strain my eyes to catch a glimpse of the Himalayan peaks. It’s really cold at this hour of the morning. The sun hasn't risen yet but I can see the rays coming. Enveloped by the fragrance of blossoming jasmines, I watch the sun playing peek-a-boo. I stand there mesmerized when suddenly I realize that the balcony is spiraling downwards! And the next moment the scene shifts… instead of the imposing glory of the mountains, I am surrounded by the thorny splendor of cacti in the middle of the Thar Desert… with the sun about to set…but..
“Wait, how is this possible???”

Just as I said these words, the alarm on my clock started to ring. It was my mother calling on my mobile to wake me up. All I wanted to do was ignore her calls and go back to sleep. I WANT my dream back... 5 minutes more...pleassseee...

But alas! She didn’t give up. After much effort, I finally picked up her call. All sleep disappeared when I realized that I needed to be at Tanya's place by 6 and I really had to hurry. My system revolted. I did the daily rituals absolutely unaware of what I was doing because my mind was still there in the balcony on which I was standing…
Tanya was waiting for me across the road. We had to go to Haryana. I said to myself… “Life is like a wave Abhi, what goes up comes down”. If my dream of that balcony was the crest, then the teachers’ training in Haryana was definitely the trough.

Tanya greeted me with a sunny smile and we began what seemed like, at that point, a most tiresome journey. It was a 2 hour drive and we listened to music. It was a cloudy day and we drove past open fields…the sun's rays just managing to peep through. The sky was gorgeous… and all this just reminded me of my dream of the mountains…

A policeman stopped us for some checking. He called me outside the car and asked me to show him my ID. Realizing this, Tanya also stepped out of the car and started a conversation with the cop. At this point I would like to inform my readers that if there is one thing that Haryanavi men are wary of, it is talking to women. And so it was with this cop. He tried his best to not to talk to Tanya but Tanya being Tanya, she would not back out. Finally, the cop took me to a corner and checked my ID proof. He looked at my ID for what seemed like an eternity (I don’t know what he saw there) and then very ceremoniously noted down my house number. He noted down the house number but not the street number...how the heck does he expect to find me???

Anyway, after this short interlude of unnecessary harassment, we resumed our journey. By this time I was totally through with my dream hangover. I declare to myself “Welcome to Haryana”. After what seemed like a million years of battle waged, we finally reached our destination.

As we went from one training venue to the other, we found that no training had been organized on that day. As we walked out of our last training venue, we decided to call for a team meeting. We were standing near the school’s playground and there I saw a teacher teaching mathematics to a bunch of 25 students sitting under a tree. This teacher looked really strict. What struck me as odd was that his table had a bunch of wooden sticks along with the books. The teacher gave his class a question to solve. After about 20 min. he picked up one of the wooden sticks and started looking at a child’s notebook. Now, I am quite sure you all can anticipate what might have happened next… exactly!! With all his might, the teacher smacked the child with the stick. As he checked the children's notebooks, the teacher became more and more frustrated. While all this happened, there was one student sitting in that class who was different from the others. That kid was not afraid…his face had a strange calmness. When his turn came, he threw his notebook away and signaled the teacher to hit him.

While we watched, the teacher humiliated and took it all out on the little kid. Yet, the kid's face retained the serenity (or perhaps it was resilience), a resolve to not let the teacher perturb him. He didn’t defend himself while the teacher hit him.
The teacher finished his "class", the bell rung and the students started walking towards their classroom. That particular child just stood there quietly. Then he did something that took me by surprise… he picked up the stick and started hitting the tree with that stick viciously. As the child vented out his frustration on the tree I stood there benumbed by a thought that surrounded me at that moment. A few years ago I was that child...but my story had a different ending to the one that I was witnessing. I remembered a lesson life once taught me:

Life at all times provides you with choices
No such thing as a right or wrong choice exists
Choices are independent of reasons
Yet every choice has a consequence
You may choose to hate the teacher for what he did
Or you may choose to take a stand for what happened
I chose to write about it.

Abhineet Singh: Delhi

Maharashtra mein Bhaiyya ka ASER:

2009-11-30T02:23:00.000-08:00

The recent elections in Maharashtra glamorized a political leader who spoke to all the media channels across the country in his mother tongue, “Marathi”. Some called it a political masterstroke, some said he was true to the sons of soil of Maharashtra and some even went to the extent to calling him the savior of the so called “Marathi Pride”. There has been a lot of discussion and debate about Mumbai belongs to whom? Those who speak Marathi, but are from different parts of the country, those who are Maharashtrians (sons of the soil) irrespective of whether they can or cannot speak Marathi, or it belongs to the normal “Mumbaikar” – an aam aadmi who can speak any language and come from any part of this country but carries the “never say die attitude” of Mumbai along.

I was born in Mumbai. My Marathi is better than my mother tongue “Tamil. In the last 23 years of my life I have adopted so many Marathi ways of living that I feel like an outsider when I go to Tamil Nadu. Yet recently while traveling in a local train I felt like an “outsider” in Mumbai when some Marathi women refused to give me a seat. The recent political game played by certain pseudo secular and pseudo democratic men in Maharashtra has tarnished the spirit of Mumbai and has a massive effect on the minds of those who come from other States, especially North India.

I got an opportunity to participate in the ASER Survey this year. It was ironical that being a “madrasi”, I was told to go to a village in Maharashtra and do the testing in Marathi. I had one more Pratham teacher who accompanied me during the survey. She was a Maharashtrian.

Mharal village in the Kalyan Taluka in Thane district was far from being a village. The waves of urbanization had hit the village and we could see many urban-complexes in and around Mharal. However there were chawls and houses spread across the village and some of the Katkari tribes stayed outside the village boundary.

The ASER survey was going on fine. We had successfully met the sarpanch, collected the school data, mapped the village better than an architect, and followed the rules of the survey to the extent that nobody in the history of ASER would have done. Finally the time came to test learning levels of the children in Mharal.

The first house that we went to was that of a typical middle class Maharashtrian. The children in the house looked like future IIT’ans. They solved the problems in Math and read the text in English as if they had taken coaching classes for ASER, and were aware that we were coming. However they struggled to read the Marathi text (is Mr. Marathi listening?). I was thrilled at their learning levels and the mother proudly said that it was thanks to the tuition teacher and the private “English” school that they went to.

While we were approaching the second house (5th by ASER rules) a group of kids told us “Te bhaiyye aahet” (They are bhaiyya’s – North Indians). The mother and the children from the previous house mentioned that it is a “bhaiyya” family and the kid won’t know proper reading or writing because he went to the Municipal school in Mharal. The mother added that these Bhaiyya’s have come and settled here and are spoiling the Marathi pride. The politician’s game had worked; the Marathi’s hate North Indians.

Nevertheless, thanks to ASER rules which does not specify that the survey has to be done of every 5th Maharashtrian household, I approached the house and saw a boy sitting outside on the porch. There was a young lady with a traditional veil and sindoor, which was a loud evidence of her being a non-Maharashtrian. The name plate said, “Tripathi”. After explaining the purpose of the survey, I looked at her 12 year old son. Call it my bias or the societal influence, even before asking the child his schooling details, I assumed that he cannot read Marathi and started searching for the Hindi testing tool. While I was searching, he looked at the Marathi tool in my hand and started reading the words. I was shocked and asked him if he could read Marathi. He told me that he went to the Municipal school in Mharal and the medium of instruction was Marathi. He read the story in no time and put every Maharashtrian onlooker to shame. I was beaming with pride as if he was my own son. The mother was silently looking while she dried her papad.

I moved to the mother. She mentioned that she has finished her Std 12th. Again a victim of the societal bias, I asked her if she would want to read a simple paragraph in Hindi. She read it and then asked me why did I give her the Hindi para to read? I had to admit that I had assumed that she would not know Marathi. Also the neighbors told me so; of course I did not mention the “bhaiyya" word. She smiled (may be at my ignorance and bias) and took the Marathi testing tool from me. She read it so loud that the neighbors would have definitely heard it. She read it fluently and then asked me if there was any other material in Marathi. Unfortunately we had no more stories, she had read them all. In fact she read it more fluently than the mother of the previous house.

“I am 10th pass from Marathi medium, I am a Marathi Manoos.” she said with pride in her eyes. All her critics were silenced. The boy was still solving the division level sums. It was funny that a “Madarasi” went to a “bhaiyyas” house in Maharashtra and both could read Marathi fluently, which even the “Maharashtrains” could not read.

I wonder if this story should be shared with the wounded tigers and new born cubs of Maharashtra, to show them the Bhaiyya ka ASER in Marathi. After all she was Tripathi, but yet she is a Marathi.

By
Uma Subramanian (Madarasi :-))

Twisted Tale of my Moustache

2009-11-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

I had to travel to nearly half the districts in Punjab, and Ropar was one of my many destinations. I had just finished my meeting and decided to go back to my hotel. I hired a rickshaw to take me to my hotel. Since these rickshaw-pullers were living away from their homes and had come to the city to earn money, I enquired him about a place for home cooked meals. My rickshaw-wala told me about this particular dhaba that was 3 kms away from my hotel. After explaining me the directions to that place, he left. I reached my hotel and immediately went off to sleep.

I woke up at 8.30 in the night after 4 hrs of sleep. My body was aching due to the lack of sleep and food and I had started feeling dizzy. I put on my clothes and decided to walk to the dhaba that the rickshaw-wala had told me about. It was a dark night…even the moon had betrayed me. I looked at the sky and I realized that I had stopped looking at the sky lately. I walked briskly in order to reach my destination. It was a festive season and I was really missing my family. May be that’s why my craving for home food made me walk those 3 kms in such a condition. I finally reached the dhaba and ordered for my food. As I waited for my food I saw a group of truck drivers who were also present there. I suddenly realized that some of them were looking at me. Though my heart skipped a beat, I tried to maintain a façade of calmness. In order to hide my inner emotions I greeted them with a big smile.

One of them then asked me - “How come a person like you who seems to belong to a nice family, is eating food at a place like this?”

This question stunned for a few seconds…I never expected them to ask me such a direct question. “Well, I am traveling to various districts of Punjab due to some official work and since I prefer eating home made food, I came to this place” - is the reply that I gave them.

Hearing this, the other truck drivers who were talking among themselves also joined us. As I struck an emotional chord with my new friends, they wanted to know more about me. They were extremely happy to see how well I had maintained my moustache and went on to explain the relevance of a moustache in a man’s life. When I told them about my work in the field of education, they started a keen discussion on the status of education in their villages. One of them said - “We send our children to private schools to get the best education, so that they can get a government job when they grow up.” Another one added - “We don’t want our children to end up in a profession like ours. We live outside our homes for more than 20 days a month”
We chatted for more than an hour, by which time I had finished my food and it was time for me to leave. And I walk back to my hotel…with a big smile on my face…

Abhineet Singh, Delhi

Airplanes....

2009-10-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

I was traveling to various schools in Haryana on a field visit to assess the teachers’ training program. Around 1:30 pm we took a lunch break. I was really annoyed by the trainings, so decided not to eat anything. Since I was in a school, I just sat on a chair and watched the small children play with each other. There I saw this little kid who had made a paper airplane for himself. He was alone and totally engrossed in understanding the flight of the airplane. He would throw the airplane as high as possible and enjoy watching it fly. Now before I go further I would like to tell you about this boy… his name was Mitesh. The zip of his pant was broken and around half of the buttons of his shirt were broken too. He was wearing slippers which were at least 3 sizes bigger than his foot size and his nose was running. Yet he didn’t care about any of these and continued throwing his paper-plane as high as possible. One time Mitesh put all his energy into giving his plane the highest possible flight… with the result that his plane gets stuck on a tree. Mitesh then took his slippers in his hand and started throwing them at the tree in order to get his airplane down. Mitesh finally managed to get his airplane down but then his slippers get stuck in one of the branches of the tree. But Mitesh absolutely doesn’t care that his slippers are stuck. He was just happy to get his paper-plane back and again got totally engrossed in throwing it as high as possible…

PS: While our friend Mitesh was busy flying his airplane, I and the rest of students of the school were busy getting his slippers down….which eventually we did. Mitesh however was totally lost to the world………

By: Abhineet Singh, Delhi

On the platform....

2009-10-15T00:46:00.000-07:00

10 year old Somnath alias ‘Pintya’ met Pratham staff at midnight at the CST Railway Station. A run away from Pune, he had been to 3 different shelter homes before. During the interaction it was found that he had been through an extremely traumatic childhood. He was caught by the police in Pune Railway Station and was badly beaten up. Pintya was a victim of verbal and physical abuse at his home front. He was used to being beaten up by his drunkard father. Fed up of his circumstances he eloped from home and reached Mumbai.

It took a lot of convincing and dialogue with Pintya to get him to the shelter home. He came to the shelter home in April 2008. During his initial days he disliked the rules and regulations in the shelter. He abused everyone in the shelter home and wanted to run away. Just when we thought Pintya would not be able to stick around for long, he proved us wrong. He was engrossed in the drawing and would not get distracted for a second. After about ten minutes he would go up to the shelter staff and proudly showed them his drawing. That was his first step towards getting used to the routine of the shelter. Within no time he became the biggest prankster and regular member of the educational classes. He was seen engrossed trying to write and spell basic alphabets in Marathi. He struggled his way through the textbooks but kept trying hard to match his friends.

One day in an agitated mood he said “I just fought with the teacher who comes to teach us.”
When asked why, he replied “She told me she would enrol me in school next year? His face was red with anger. He got irritated and then replied. “I fought with her because she told me that she would enrol me in school next year, but then I want to go to school this year…..you have to tell the teacher to put me in school this year. We will also go and meet my mother once in Pune. I manage to stay without her during the day but when the night falls, I miss her a lot. We will go meet her because I want to tell her that I am safe and I am going to go to school very soon. I will also tell her that I will become a big man some day and will own a car and will bring her to Mumbai.”

In June 2008, he was admitted in the Janabai Rokade Municipal School, in Std. I at age 10. Looking at his progress the teachers promoted him to Std. II. This was indeed a big achievement for him and his conviction became stronger. This year Pintya stood Second in his class and has made it to Std. III. He aspires to be first in his class next year.

The story of Kumodini

2009-09-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

Kumodini’s story reflects the deep seated societal mores and attitude against women on one hand. On the other, it shows the immense courage and strength of character that is hiding just underneath the surface of each of these women.

Kumodini lives in the village of Maharamau, in the Umao district of UP. At the age of 21 years, her life seemed to have all the ingredients for it to be a perfectly happy one. In keeping with the norms of the society Kumodini was married off immediately after she finished her graduation in Sociology. She devoted her days looking after her house and taking care of her husband and his family. All was perfect in her life till she delivered her first baby – a girl child.

In most villages of India, a girl child is still not welcomed and is considered a burden on the family. Overnight Kumodini’s life changed. Her loving husband and in-laws now started torturing her for not ‘giving’ them a son and demanded more dowry from her hassled parents. Like many women in her situation, Kumodini did not have the courage to face the society as a single mother and so continued to bear the regular torture and beating from her husband and in-laws.

One day, to add insult to injury, Kumodini’s husband took her and his daughter back to her parent’s house and left them there. Coming back to parent’s home after marriage is considered the utmost disgrace for both the girl as well as her parents. Unable to bear the ridicule of her neighbors, Kumodini became a recluse.

At that time, Pratham was mobilizing volunteers for their summer camps in her village. For Kumodini, this opportunity came as a new ray of hope in her life. After several meetings with the representatives of Pratham, she joined as an unpaid volunteer for the summer camp. Her only motivation was to prove her worth to herself and to those around her. Kumodini continued to work for Pratham even after the summer camps were over. After a year of committed work, she was recruited by Pratham as their trainer monitor.

Today, Kumodini not only contributes to her family’s income but has also enrolled her daughter in a private school 5kms away from home. Sending her little daughter everyday to school in an autorickshaw is a mark of tremendous courage for an average girl from a village of India. Kumodini now wants to do her Masters in Social Work. From a girl who couldn’t speak in front of others, Kumodini has transformed into a woman who has the confidence to face the society, and take independent decisions in her and her daughter’s life.

World Literacy Day: Painting Competition

2009-09-15T02:40:00.000-07:00

(By Amita Naresh Zoya, 2nd Std)

A little note by Sabah Merchant, a psychology student and a Pratham volunteer. One of the reason we love our work....we get to meet so many amazing people everywhere.

“I decided to volunteer mainly because kids teach me more than what I ever can. They have the energy, innocence and drive which is seen in adults as well but it is in a purer form when it comes to kids. I also decided to volunteer because I feel a sense of satisfaction when I am with the kids. This happens because very few things in life are done selflessly or without some or the other motives….being with the kids enables me to nurture my true self and find happiness in what I am doing.

My experience has been fantastic! The teachers were very humble and forthcoming…. the kids reminded me of myself way back in school and realised that kids will be kids and that’s the way I love them. I have seen excitement and warmth in their eyes which brings an immense sense of joy to my heart because it is so transparent! One of the most amazing things was the fact that inspite of not winning the competition, they cheered for everyone, regardless of anything…..and wrote and drew the paintings with dedication. Nothing was just in passing….they loved doing what they did and I loved watching them and talking to them. There was a sense of sincerity and they looked up to their teachers which is very important. Respect is something that comes with time and experience and they will carry forward these lessons further in life…..”

(Farhan Ansari, 3rd Std)

A way around

2009-09-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

After twenty minutes of winding through the crowded streets of Jaipur, on the back of a scooter we reached our destination in one of the largest slums in Jaipur. This was the house of a Muslim family. As we walked in I saw that the rooms on the bottom floor of the house had been converted to classrooms. There were blackboards, and mats on the floor, coloring pencils, reading cards and slates. A class was in progress and one teacher sat teaching the alphabet to a group of 25 pre-school children.

We were soon joined by another lady. She was smart, eloquent and spoke English fluently. On conversing with her I found that she was convent educated, had a bachelor’s degree and loved teaching children. However, she had been married into a family that believed in the ‘purdah’ system. After marriage, she was not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied or do any sort of job. Once, the headmaster at her son’s school had asked her to join their faculty as an English teacher as she was fluent and good with children. She had to decline.

Later, she tried and convinced her sister-in-law, the daughter of the house (who did not have to follow Purdah), to convert the rooms in the house into classrooms so she could teach without leaving the house. Here the sister-in-law ran a pre-school class in the morning and she, an English class in the afternoon for five days a week. When she could not go out, she decided to bring her passion home.

Her passion for teaching also showed in how she managed her work and life. Whenever she had to go for trainings or meetings for Pratham, she made excuses to her in-laws about going to the market, or to the doctor or to her parents place. Unlike many others, she found a way to follow her heart despite the many restrictions on her…..a small and hopeful example which makes our work all the more worthwhile.

Meghna Mittal

Perspective

2009-08-28T05:18:00.001-07:00

A Painting by one of the boys at the PCVC Boys' Shelter in Mumbai

My Nabi Karim Experience

2009-08-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

These two words changed my life and perspective on the issue of child labour.

The situation in Nabi Karim drives me CRAZY

C - I am Convinced that children should not work. Not that I wasn't before but now the conviction has become stronger.

R - Its Reinforced in my mind that child labour is the most inhumane practice and that I am working for the right cause. Even if they are poor, its not an option.

A - I was and I continue to be Angry on everybody who is responsible for the situation these children are in. I am Anxious to know if these children will ever be free.

Z - I was Zapped to see a 9 year old boy whose name was 'Aazad' and a 6 years old 'Tammana'. Their names were ironical to the situation they were in.

Y - The big question is Y? This situation exists in the national capital where almost everybody works on child labour. The old saga of crisis of collaboration between NGOs and the governmental departments continue.

I could not sleep for two nights when we were conducting the need assessment in Nabi Karim. Whenever I closed my eyes, the images of the lanes, the sounds of sewing machines, the face of 'Aazad' and many of his friends continued to haunt me. I kept thinking what would Aazad be doing, will he be sleeping or still up working? I was so restless that I just could not sleep. There were a lot of questions in my mind. I discussed it with my seniors but some questions just did not have any answers.

I woke up at 3am and started penning down my feelings and the findings of the need assessment. It was 6.20pm by the time I was through; the findings remained but the feelings had vanished from the report. I remember one of my senior colleagues telling me...don't make an emotional appeal....just give out the facts. But the biggest fact remained that overtly and in broad daylight, in the heart of the country's capital, in the consituency of the Hon. HRD Minister who was instrumental in passing the right to education bill, there are hundreds of children rotting in leather factories. I failed to understand how one cannot but get emotional.

When the Drop-in centre began on 15th Aug, it was a mere coincidence. It was the first step towards the aazadi of 'Aazad' on the 62nd Independence Day. I was elated at the sight of the children coming in to the centre. To watch them play with a ball or carom board was extremely blissful; they wanted to be in the centre and to play. The faces of all the shelter children in Mumbai and Andhra Pradesh crossed my mind. I thought they would also have been in the same situation once upon a time....but today their lives are changed. 15 minutes later, the children started leaving. My heart sank...they were going back to that hell.

"Abba, main padna chahta hoon". When i read the first sentence of the letter by Anwar Ali to his father, i had tears in my eyes. Its shameful that a child in this country has to plead for his right to be educated. It once again put things in perspective. His next line on the lack of water and food in Nabi Karim hit me the most. I feel that all those people who say...don't rescue children because there is no proper rehabilitation, bad education system, they are better off working or that Bihar is so poor they would continue to work etc etc....these people should be made to work in Nabi Karim for a month. This would help them understand the situation better.

Nabi Karim was and continues to be an unfinished business for me. This experience took me 4 years back to my past when I had decided to quit microbiology and join social work. There was anger, frustration and a fire to be the change. Today, exactly years later I still feel the same. It will take a long time, but i want to make sure that Aazad is freed one day. Then I can finally write a report titled "Goodbye to the Lanes of Nabi Karim".

Uma Subramanian

A Close Encounter

2009-08-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

It was late by the time we could leave. The printer had just finished the final print of the materials we needed. Books, charts, reports and other things too had to be loaded. There were cartons, boxes and sacks. One by one these packages were loaded on to the carrier of the vehicle. Although it had not rained all day, there were clouds in the sky. It could rain at any time. The luggage on top was covered with tarpaulin and tied tightly. All this took time. Finally we were ready. Five young men from the Assam team, a mountain of luggage, the driver and me. It was almost ten at night as we left Guwahati.

The night was going to be a long one. We had to cover almost 500 km to our destination. The new Pratham District Resource Centre for Assam is between Dibrugarh and Tinsukia. The training for DRC evaluation was to start the next morning. The trainers, the state head, the DRC coordinator, two other district coordinators, all the testing tools and instruction sheets – everything had to reach Dibrugarh by the morning in time for the training to start.

Getting out of Guwahati is a nightmare. The trucks are allowed to move out of the city only at night. As a result, a massive number of trucks clog the winding hill road near Khanapara. There is road construction going on to widen the road. Rain from the day before had turned the entire area into a sea of slush. There was a constant roar of truck engines and sound of spinning tyres splashing through the mud filled potholes. Exhaust fumes, smoke and smell of petrol and diesel filled the air.

Through all this noise, we heard a strange straining noise from the top of the car. The driver put his hand out of to feel the carrier above. It seemed that the carrier had slid forward and buckled under the weight of the luggage. We could not stop, even to check till we were well out of the jam of the city.

Thirty kilometers out of Guwahati, in a stretch where the highway widened, we stopped. The driver’s door could not open. Neither could the door of the front passenger seat. The pieces of metal that held the carrier to the car body had bent down and slid to jam the door frame. With some difficulty we got out. The sky was cloudy but the moon was shining brightly (it was the night after Rakhi Poornima). Despite the constant roar of passing trucks, there was a quick discussion of what was to be done. The final decision was to take down all the packages and re-pack the load.

The process of repacking began. Three people climbed on the top of the Sumo. The carefully tied tarpaulin was untied. Boxes and sacks were handed down. One sack had certificates and ASER reports. These were taken out and arranged like blocks to raise the base of the carrier. Everyone was joking and laughing. Someone said, “See how strong paper can be – it can bend steel”.

Just then a police van went past. It passed us and then stopped. The doors of the van opened. Five or six policeman with big torches and weapons came towards us. Our team did not stop working but I noticed that everyone had become silent.

“Who are you? Where are you going?” asked the first policeman who reached us. In the middle of the night, well outside the city with five young men and a mountain of cartons and with a long history of insurgency and violence – the answer “We are an NGO” seemed weak and unconvincing even to my own ears. The policemen questioned some more. “We work in education – so that children can go to school and learn well”. The chief policeman had been watching the process of re-loading. “Are these all books?” he asked. Abhijit began to explain how important it was that all children learned to read and the need for supplementary reading materials for children.[1]

The chief policeman thought for some time. The headlights from passing trucks sporadically illuminated the scene. The moon slipped in and out of the clouds. Everyone was holding their breath wondering what was going to happen next. The policeman then said, “Since you people are in education, I must ask you a question. Do you think matric exams should be abolished?”

For the next forty five minutes, there was an intense discussion about the importance and the role of matric exams in the life of families and children. How aspirations are tied to exam performance. How much people remember who came first which year. What will children strive for if the exams are removed? The other policemen had lost interest and wandered back to their van.

The policeman continued. “DGP of Police of Assam he came first in his matric exams in 1982. I still remember thinking that this boy will go far. Every year I read in the paper about who has come first and who has come second and from which district. That is how we come to know where the schools are good. Abhijit tried to bring the conversation around to the new bill that had been passed in Parliament a few days ago. But our policeman was not interested in abstract things. He went back to his concrete concern. “I feel proud for these children who are doing well. We wait each year about how the children we know are doing”…. “Kapil Sibal? He has come from a high court or Supreme Court. Can he understand common concerns of common (“sadharon”) people?”

Our luggage had been repacked and our work was done. We hesitantly took leave of our policeman. He seemed sad to see us go. The gentleman thanked us profusely. “You all are educationists, I am a common man. Thank you for listening to my views.”

By morning we had reached Dibrugarh. All along the way, on foot and on cycles there were groups of young girls and boys on their way to high school. Looking at the laughing chatting young people I wondered if behind each of these children, there is someone who stays up till midnight worrying about policies made in Delhi.

Rukmini Banerji
August 9 2009