Saturday, January 30, 2010

Delhi - 26th Jan 2010

An exhausting 22 hour train journey brought Jen, me and some larger-than-life cockroaches to Delhi, India’s third city and its bustling capital. On the 26th January, we joined the local population in the 60th Republic Day celebrations (a military parade - including camels, see photo - more like a toned-down Notting Hill carnival)!


The following day we took a rickshaw from Majnu Ka Tilla, the Tibetan refugee camp where we were staying to Sarai Pipl Thala, an urban slum on the outskirts of Delhi. Pratham has been active in Delhi since 1999. Currently present in 5 out of 12 zones, they hope to expand into 6 by the end of the year (www.delhipratham.org). While the monthly volunteer refresher course was going on in the background, Pallavi, coordinator for 3 of the 5 zones told us about the wealth of programmes running in the capital. In 660 MCD (Municipal Cooperation of Delhi) schools Pratham has set up libraries with over 200 books in Hindi, environmental sciences, social sciences and maths. The 250 schools with over 80% level of Hindi, according to the quarterly tests, also receive English books. On top of this internal assistance, Pratham also runs 36 Learning Centres which provide extra support to 3rd – 5th standard (8 to 11 year olds). At the next door centre we tiptoed around some girls conducting their end of year examination. So determined were they to finish that some didn’t even look up to see the strange white faces that had just entered their classroom!



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www.pratham.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org

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