Thursday, February 11, 2010

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 (cafe/shack) just outside Jodhpur before sunrise. YES, I had arrived.


As the morning sunshine warmed Livi, 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 has been promoted rapidly and has been recommended for a part time MBA to begin alongside his Pratham work. Throughout the day we see the importance of such opportunities to the volunteers who contribute to Pratham.


Rajasthan is an extremely interesting district; not only is Hindi rarely the mother tongue of the children here but we find 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 have 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 Livi’s blog) and Balwadi programs. 10 days previously Pratham had launched ‘Novjeevan 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 ‘Novjeevan Yojna’ where 45 girls have been selected by Pratham’s survey of Bastis, urban slum areas of 250 families. These girls between 6 to 16 years receive full board and lodging as well as lessons in Malwadi, 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 rubbish 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 although whether she will ever get one of the few government jobs reserved for India’s large handicapped population is 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' to learn the Hindi names of choice fruits; very helpful for our haggling back in Jodhpur! Another hot and dusty ride through rural Rajasthan later and 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 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 volunteers, sisters Swmitra 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 asked if they wanted chocolate sweeties in Hindi, none put up their hands, we had to reassure them that we really wanted 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.

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

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