Nabadisha Education Project
Thousands of children who live in appalling conditions on streets or railway platforms, or in markets, slums and squatter colonies, are surviving on the edge. These vulnerable children are exposed to physical, economic and sexual exploitation. VITAL seeks to help these young children off the streets and into learning centers where they can prepare to enter or re-enter the formal education system.
- The age group of the children is 4-14
In addition to academics, the children are given an all round education with various activities including: Yoga, dance, sports, drama, stories, poetry, puppetry, music, and art and craft. Different activities within the classroom help to break barriers, create confidence and assist children to manage and protect themselves.
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The project has proved highly successful with bringing out of school children into the fold of the formal education & has had an overall positive impact on the communities at large.
Through this program, the organization attempts to bring children residing in crime prone areas into the societal mainstream by giving them the opportunity for quality education. In addition to working with children, the program is involved in awareness building and training of police officers on issues of child rights and juvenile justice.
The Kolkata police had been trying for some time in the past to transform its role of law keeper and come out with a more constructive and humane face. Among all the government departments, the police department is most in touch with the grassroots level and often come to witness ″life in the raw″. To strengthen their community contacts regular health check up services for slum and street children are arranged in all the 36 police stations of Kolkata once every month on Sundays with the help of the Rotary and Lion′s Clubs along with discussions held with the parents, children & teachers.
Most of the Nabadisha children value the space, not only for education but also as a space for friendships. Regular activites and events have been organized along with involving them in the center managements so as to bring a feeling of ownership. Sometimes the center is used as a protective space for younger children when their mothers go out to work. Many of them come from a home environment where the night′s shelter is in question, where eviction is a regular threat. Many a time they are from the extreme margins of the society where their parents have opted for illegal and hazardous occupations (drug trafficking, making country liquor, sex trade, rag picking) which bring with it a different kind of insecurity. Many a time the children are involved in various kinds of odd jobs to eke out a decent existence in the city.
Nabadisha in Tollygunge and New Market are joint projects with the Police, The Hope Foundation & The Hope Kolkata Foundation.
Case Study
Bikash Sengupta's poverty ridden parents pulled him out of school in his hometown in Midnapore, Bengal, and brought him to Kolkata to seek employment. "Lucky" Bikash got a job in a tea factory where he got paid Rs.3/- ($00.05) for every large tea packet he packed. If not for Nabadisha he would have still been there.
Bikash joined Nabadisha, and being a quick learner, a dedicated and diligent student, was soon topping his class and is now a full-time student. He attends the Nabadisha centre every morning and then goes to the Corporation school where he has created a record , getting 90% in his annual exam (the highest score attained by any of the school's students in the past 3 years). He excels in art, craft, recitation, acting and sports, and is Class Monitor and even teaches junior classes when the teacher is absent, all thanks to Nabadisha.
Period : April 2008 to April 2009
VITAL partnered with Child Rights and You (CRY) for the Child Education project which largely aims to bring the thousands of disadvantaged children of Kolkata, India an opportunity to gain the necessary literacy and numeracy skills and an all round education for a brighter future.
The programme is based on a 'bridging course' which incorporates the idea that a 'bridge' needs to be built in order to prepare and support out-of-school children both socially and academically to enter or re-enter the formal education system.The age group of the children is 4-14 years with older children enrolled in vocational training centres. Children are divided into groups according to their learning levels rather than ages. The grouping is flexible because a majority of the children are without any literary or arithmetic skills, while others are school drop-outs and have some residual learning.
Most important to academics however, the children are given different activities within the classroom help to break barriers, create confidence and assist children to manage and protect themselves. For example, teaching yoga and dancing to girls from Muslim communities has helped to break the cultural barriers and change gendered notions among them while creating a physical confidence within them.
Special attention is given to cleanliness, hygiene, discipline and positive work habits so that the children are able to join the societal mainstream in a broader sense.
The Child Education project also involves the training of Police Officers and teachers on issues of Child Rights and the Juvenile Justice Act in order to build on the protection issues of countless children suffering ongoing Child Rights violations.
The Amar Boi (My Book) Process
One of the many important projects VITAL supports is the The Amar Boi (My Book) process which involves the children drawing and writing about themselves and their immediate environment in their own journal. The process not only provides a space for expression for the children and an opportunity to decipher and analyse their own environment but has also helped to protect children if aspects of concern are revealed such as child abuse. The Amar Boi process has proved particularly useful as a strategy for the protection of children and assisting them to make the necessary decisions to enhance their future.
The process has highlighted that many of the children’s main battles are with their own families. Some drawings of their families depict a distance from the male head of the household. When privately discussing these issues it was found that many children are fearful of this member due to domestic violence and in some cases there has been serious and ongoing child sexual abuse. When children reveal concerning aspects of their lives, further meetings are held with the child, parents and/or guardians to assist in building protection issues for the child.
Many children are writing about the activities of other children in their environment, which gives an idea of the dangerous activities that many children are getting into such as drugs, gambling, consuming tobacco and petty thefts. The process of Amar Boi has enabled children to analyse their environments and behaviours and make decisions which will only enhance their future.
Other interesting issues that have emerged from the children’s journals are water scarcity and conflict over water usage in slums. Children were asked to go home and measure the amount of water they use and store at home. The findings gave startling results on poor water management in slums, which subsequently lead to the discussion of implementing strategies on how to most effectively manage water usage.
The children have also done a detailed study on financial savings, which has helped them to assess their family’s savings habits. The children learned that many of their families were using high risk savings options with short-term benefits but losses in the long run and instead were taught more effective savings methods.
Training on Child Rights
In addition to working with children on an educational basis, the project involves the training of police officers and teachers on issues of Child Rights and the Juvenile Justice Act. These trainings are to ensure that when teachers and police officers are faced with issues concerning Child Rights violations they are able to follow up on the child and do referrals work for the specific situation.
In partnership with VITAL, CRY has trained four groups of police personnel on Child Rights to date. Throughout the year of 2008 the teachers of Nabadisha will be receiving intensive training on the Juvenile Justice Act from the organisation Praajak
Some examples of common Child Rights violations are:
| * Early arranged childhood marriage due to economic reasons |
| * Threat of child trafficking |
| * Child sexual abuse within family and in community |
| * Victims of family violence and alcoholism/drug abuse |
| * Child labour often along with hazardous working conditions |
| * Poor nutritional and health status |
| * Poor Hygiene |
| * Over-congested and squalor living conditions |
| * Threat of eviction/displacement |
| * Lack of quality formal schools for disadvantaged children |
Teachers
The teachers of the Nabadisha programme are trained by the VERS Early Childhood Learning Course and take an active, enthusiastic and compassionate role in their duty to be great role models for the children. In addition to classroom activities, teachers regularly conduct parents meetings and make home visits to strengthen contact with the local community. They also maintain regular contact with the local community leaders and the police officers.
Throughout the year of 2007, meetings with children and teachers led to a greater understanding on how power structures are being perceived by children and the various barriers that they are facing due to extreme marginalisation.
Some of the principles of adult facilitation listed by the teachers were:
| * Need to create an environment free from fear |
| * Build confidentiality and trust |
| * Don’t judge the child according to her/his social background |
| * Motivation |
| * Since they are in a constant habit of hearing “NO” use only positive language |
| * Speak at the same level as the child |
| * Give the child a space for expression |
| * Use simple language |
| * Understand the child’s ego, like adults, children too have egos |
| * Remember we can learn from children |
| * Extend friendship |
| * Give the child a space for belongingness rather than an “us” and “them” attitude |
| * Break barrier of looking down at the child |
| * Create an open and ‘one on one’ space |
| * Give them correct information so they fear less |
| * Don’t forget care-giving skills |
| * Praise the child |
| * Show patience and tolerance |
| * Be a good listener |
Partnerships Nabadisha is a joint project with the Police, Child Rights and You (CRY) and the Vikramshila Education Resource Society (VERS). VITAL funds projects in Browbazar and Taratala in partnership with CRY which has been supporting the Nabadisha Project since its inception. VERS implements the project by providing educational resources and the training of teachers. The Catholic Relief Service (CRS) provides sustenance support.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring will be done through the following internal processes:
Field visits will be made twice a week to monitor the implementation of the activities.
Case Managers/Teachers/Volunteers – specifically state who will have regular interaction with the children, their mothers and other community members and to follow up needs expressed by the children including counselling sessions.
Additionally, progress of the children’s education will be monitored by comparing the children’s school results against their performances in the coaching centres.
The project is monitored by CRY’s Development Support Division on a regular basis and the progress is reported on an annual basis.
