Pratham Maharashtra and its women

Madhuri has been a volunteer for the English pilot programme in her village, Sulikhanjan near Aurangabad. Just out of school and with little familiarity with the language, the task of teaching 20 children must have been daunting. But Madhuri seems a determined girl. This isn’t the biggest adversity she has faced, and she knew she had to make something of her life, to support her family after her father’s passing away. With the help of the continuous training Pratham imparted, the handbook for instructors, and the amazing material (yes amazing, see photo below) provided by them, her job was simplified. It was set into a pattern of studying herself and then teaching what she just learnt.

An example of the English material provided by Pratham

Her students now boast of a repertoire of 350 words and 50-100 sentences. That is a big achievement when you begin from scratch, and teach for just a few days. And it is an even bigger achievement when the teacher herself begins from near scratch.

But these achievements of Madhuri are more important for the changes they have brought in her life. She has picked up the rudiments of English, and now wishes to learn further. She wishes to teach both English and Mathematics in the phase II of Read India. She has enrolled in the local college for a Bachelors degree. On the basis of her Pratham stint, she has got a job as a teacher at a local private school, the money from which is precious to her family’s subsistence. And she has discovered freedom; the mobility and respect that comes from being a teacher is new to a girl from these parts of the country. And it is treasured above everything else.

Madhuri at her home where she also runs the Pratham village library

All over the Maharashtrian countryside, Pratham is changing the lives of the women associated with it. They’re gaining skills, social mobility and greater meaning for themselves. And these women are changing Pratham too. Many of its coordinators and most of its volunteers are women. They are intelligent, outspoken and fiercely loyal. This symbiotic relationship between Pratham Maharashtra and its women is perhaps the most outstanding spin-off of this movement to educate children.

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