Every Child In School and Learning Well

Bangalore - 15th Feb 2010

2010-02-19T02:02:00.000-08:00

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 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 evident 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 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 like 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.” The fact is that many able arts candidates are understandably put off 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 (http://www.aksharafoundation.org/) since 2000. In the Pratham office in the Bangalore suburbs, Ashok, the well-spoken Chair person showed us the impressive database (http://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, like many of his classmates, can indeed make his dream a reality.

From here Jen and I are making 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 whos 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!

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www.pratham.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
woke up

2010-02-11T22:53:00.001-08:00

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

Assam - 2nd Feb 2010

2010-02-09T05:39:00.001-08:00

When asked what my travel arrangements were for this evening I received gales 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 previous night two people were killed in an encounter with the security forces and a doctor was kidnapped by unidentified miscreants suspected to be part of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).

The Assamese state symbol is the rhino. Abhijit mused 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-ACER 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 Saturday and Sunday classes. In this area silk weaving is the major employer – and indeed the main occupation of the Pratham volunteers – so a visit to a silk factory seemed fitting.

Back in the car we drove at the pace of Abdul’s Indian tech 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 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 neighbouring villages. Sitting on the grass in the playground I asked them what their greatest challenge had been. They were unanimous that, though terrorism is often cited, it is not a good enough excuse for poor education in the state. Rather the socio-economic issues – such as alcoholism in poor communities – are disabling their efforts.

After some fantastic Assamese chi 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 this, the most beautiful region of India I’ve visted so far.

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

Assam - 1st Feb 2010

2010-02-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

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 paddies 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. Since independence, many ethnic-lingustic groups have jostled – often violently – to assert themselves in the face of immigration, governmental neglect and heavy-handed defence policy. 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 so far 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; the 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 had 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 looks like 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 (powdered tobacco) he explained to us about the spider web of
interconnected issue in the state. One concern arises from the proliferation of tribal groups here means linguistical 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.

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

Delhi - 27th Jan 2010

2010-01-30T06:13:00.001-08:00

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. Arshisayyed and her team of 4 other women are currently collecting data for a survey of Nabi Karim’s 15,000 karhanas to send to the Delhi Commission for the Protection of the Child, as well as to inform the unknowing Pradhan and parents of the fate that awaits their children on arrival in the glistening ‘metro city’.

But the difficulties faced at the centre are severe. At Nabi Karim, Jen and I met Arshisayyed who 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 that was working for him was coming to our centre.” Starting as a volunteer Balwadi teacher in Mumbai, Arshisayyed 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 like this one on Abid’s face in his sparse free time – then a bridge to cross this channel is already under construction.

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

Delhi - 26th Jan 2010

2010-01-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

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 26^th 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 3^rd – 5^th 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

Gujarat to Diu - Jan 16th 2010

2010-01-30T05:40:00.001-08:00

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) we were leaving just as I had proudly washed the majority of my capsule 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 is to start in the blue city of Jodhpur, where I met my companion Jen. I'll leave Jen to introduce herself...

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

Ahmedabad - 12th Jan 2010

2010-01-19T23:50:00.000-08:00

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 and 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 population work in agriculture, 25% in small industry, such as textiles and stone carving, and the remaining 15% are non-contracted 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, apparently 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 is, unlike the projects I’ve seen so far, completely independent. The centre 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 objectives of the centre are to give all children the chance to benefit from the same quality of tuition that they would receive in a private school. Every 6 months, 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 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 of Pratham’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!

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

Nandurbar - 10th Jan 2010

2010-01-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

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 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 names Sujit. In this village I also met a women’s committee who collectively pooled money in order to provide lunchtime food for the children and a before-school care for 3 to 5 year olds. In Mothe Kadvan 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 homemade 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’.

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

Nandurbar - 9th Jan 2010

2010-01-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

Although I’ve only moved a six hour bus journey North (three hours had there been better kept, less mountaneous 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 DRC 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!

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

Aurangabad - 8th Jan 2010

2010-01-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

I was awoken, not by the constant hooting of cars, not by the Republic Day 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 I 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 from 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 ‘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 for the more advanced pupils and where Pratham hopes that all children will advance to. Each level of the programme lasts for 3 months 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 the building blocs of India and Pratham is the cement between these blocs. In the second village, Sarai, I spoke with the headteacher who had concerns about the attendance of children to school, particularly in migrant families (see Pia’s blog). She assured me however that attendance ratings are improving following a government campaign to ensure all children between 5 – 10 years old 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!

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

Aurangabad - 7th Jan 2010

2010-01-07T21:24:00.000-08:00

Olivia Toye has recently graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University. Before embarking on her careershe is volunteering withPratham. She'll be giving regular updates asshe discovers more aboutthe work we do.

To set the scene, I’m in Maharastra, India’s second most populous state. Within the state lies Mumbai, India’s booming financial capital. But that’s not to say the state as a whole is rich – far from it. Aurangabad, from where I start my journey, is a bustling city of nearly a million people. Like numerous Indian metropolises, Aurangabad’s traditional industries such as the manufacture ofPaithani silk saris are dying out in favour of consumer-led demand for beer and electricals from companies like Kingfisher and Videocom. There is also a large military base on the outskirts of the city and (from what 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 at the 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 takingplace. As we arrived in thefirst 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 1,200 Pratham volunteers giving a reading lesson, as part of the 'Read toLearn' programme run by Pratham for 6 to 14 year olds. He was a Pyschology 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!!

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Going Home

2009-05-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

Well here I am at the end of my time here in India. I am back in Delhi and over the past two days have been feverishly working on my report. It is almost done I am happy to say, just a few finishing touches to put on it upon my return to New York. Trying to synthesize everything that I have seen and heard from volunteers, Pratham workers and government officials has been difficult. By difficult, I mean that I have experienced and learned so much that creating a cohesive, comprehensive narrative which encompasses everything that I wish to convey poses a challenge. I believe that for the most part I have accomplished the feat.

During my stay I have seen many faces of this vast country, but I know that I have only scratched the surface. I once read in a Lonely Planet guidebook that India is less a country than a continent all of its own. I now fully agree with that appraisal. This feeling was reinforced when I learned recently that there are something in the range of nineteen different major languages within India. Along with this, there are hundreds of individual dialects scattered across the length and breadth of the subcontinent. When viewed from this perspective the necessity for local volunteers and the knowledge that they hold becomes even more important. Even a highly committed NGO such as Pratham could not hope to operate on the large scale that is does throughout India without their local workers. These workers have provided some of the best moments for me. Their unceasing work both for Pratham and their communities should be an inspiration for anyone who wants to help out those who are less fortunate then themselves. My guide and translator while I was in Amritsar, Pearl, perfectly sums up this commitment. Outside of her work for Pratham as a district coordinator she also individually teaches over ninety children from the slums near her home. She works tirelessly to bring them to a level where they can attend school and excel. She also feeds and cares for 16 stray dogs.

Despite the amazing experiences I have had while in India, I will say that I am happy to be going back to New York. It will be nice to be able to speak english to someone and not receive an uncomprehending smile as a response. I will no longer need to communicate with hand gestures to tell the cab driver where I want to go (although with New York cabbies, this may not be the case). And perhaps most importantly of all, I will be able to have bacon at breakfast, and maybe even a steak for dinner.

To anyone who has read this blog and not visited India I implore you to consider planning your next vacation here. If you do come, do not spend your entire time in some swanky western resort hotel. Get out and meet the people of this amazing place. Ride the trains, and if your stomach is strong enough, the buses. Eat the food, but watch out for the water. And most importantly, come with an open mind, you may just learn something.

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

Fieldwork around Ludhiana

2009-05-08T23:04:00.001-07:00

First I would like to apologize for the lack of posts in the past few days. Through a combination of power cuts and traveling I have found it difficult to find time to write anything. I hope to make up for it now with a long post.

Over the past few days I have visited numerous villages and schools in and around Ludhiana continuing my work of interviewing volunteers. Once again I have been amazed by the success of the Parrho Punjab program in improving learning levels for young children. I have found that this success is rooted in ability of the program to fundamentally change the classroom dynamic within the schools themselves. A volunteer named Rajdeep shed some light on the subject for me. When I questioned her on how the classroom has changed since she was in primary school she told me that teachers in the past used the method of, "teaching with a stick". Insolent children would receive a rap across the knuckles for misbehaving. In a society where it is easy for children to skip school due to a lack of effective monitoring for absenteeism and community support for education it seems obvious that such draconian punishments would make a child not want to attend school. The volunteers of Parrho Punjab on the other hand all emphasized to me that they were explicitly told in their training not to harshly scold the children. They should be treated like a "delicate flower" one volunteer expressed to me. The parrho Punjab program now has children eager to learn and thus far the only drawback I have found is that the daily two hour classes make it difficult for teachers to complete their assigned government syllabus. Clearly further integration of the government mandated syllabus and parrho punjab methods could alleviate this problem.

On wednesday I attached myself to a Pratham team and followed them as they visited villages without volunteers in an attempt to drum up support for volunteer work. The first step was to visit the democratically elected village head, (known as a "Sarpanch"). After we sat down in his home, (which was equivalent in size to an average east village duplex apartment if you have ever lived in New York) we were offered tea and began the process of convincing him to allow us to canvas for volunteers.

At first he seemed reluctant and we thought we may have to continue without his support, but the dogged Pratham workers eventually began to break him down. They told him that education was for the good of the entire community, not only the children. They also mentioned how volunteers after some time in the classroom grow in self confidence. This I can personally attest to as many of the teachers I have spoken with during my interviews mention how their volunteers began as shy and unsure of themselves. After a few months these same volunteers are vocal and opinionated with serious goals of continuing their education so as to become fully qualified teachers. Soon the Sarpanch saw the value of volunteer work and even put forth his own daughter as a prospective parrho punjab recruit. He also referred us to some other young women around the village who could also be considered prospective workers. The mother of one of these girls proved more difficult to convince. She thought that all this traveling and exposure to the outside world could be dangerous for her child. I could somewhat understand her concerns as her daughter may have travel a few kilometers away from home to work in a school. This would mean either walking or hitching a ride to her destination. Other, more conservative families refused to even let us into their house. A shake of the head and mumbled refusals greeted us when we enquired about the availability of the daughter for volunteer work. This was promptly followed by the door being shut in our face. To display the contrast in opinon to our work, after one angry refusal we knocked on the neighbors door and were welcomed inside. The grandmother who spoke with us said that all her grand daughter did was sit around the house and that it would be good for her to get out and grow in experience. Less than five feet apart I was able to view first hand the conservative and progressive faces of India.

I also visited the city of Chandigarh to sit in on a meeting between the Pratham Punjab team and government officials. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a framework for the upcoming year. This included modifying the existing structure so as to make it more efficient and hammering out a budget for Parrho Punjab. Everyone involved were interested in expanding the successful program to more schools, which I have been told is in great contrast to when they initially attempted to implement the parrho punjab system. It required almost a year of work in schools and in government boardrooms for Pratham to convince the education officials to fund and support their work. As I look around the offices now, Pratham created Parrho Punjab material lines the walls. Clearly they think very highly of the program these days. I must sign off now as I have to finish off the report I was brought here to write. Ciao

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

The golden temple and Ludhiana

2009-05-05T04:12:00.000-07:00

Before departing from Amritsar to continue my work in the city of Ludhiana I had to go and visit the golden temple. The pratham contact, Pearl, and here uncle met me outside my hotel at 8 at night. We drove through the natrrow streets of old Amritsar, many times during this drive I felt sure we would be in an accident. India to the outsider appears to have no traffic laws. If there is a road you can drive however you please on it, especially against traffic as I have done a number of times during autorickshaw rides. It appears to be some sort of controlled chaos. There seems to be some intricate unwritten language of honking and hand signals that only the native Indian driver understands.

But I digress. We parked the car near the golden temple and turned in our shoes at a depository, (one must be barefoot within the temple grounds). I was told that these people handle over one million pairs of shoes a year, I don't doubt it. After washing my feet and walking through an archway I caught my first glimpse of the temple. The entire top half of the building is made of pure gold and it sits on a small island in the middle of a lake with a narrow bridge packed with pilgrims connecting it to the shore. Seeing it at night lit up with lights is an amazing sight. Words do not do it justice, it must be seen to be believed. Inside the temple is the holy book of the Sikh's and some of the most incredible inlay work within the gold itself. Hymns are constantly sung 24 hours a day by the monks and their hauntingly beautiful melodies are broadcasted throughout the temple complex, (and as I noticed later back in my hotel room, 24h hours a day on a devoted tv channel). Anyone who comes to northern India must visit the temple in Amritsar. I compare it to St. Peters cathedral in rome but without all the tacky christian symbology.

The next day I left Amritsar and boarded a bus to take me on a 4 hour journey to Ludhiana. Whereas Amritsar is located close to the Pakistan border, Ludhiana is smack in the middle of the state of Punjab. The first thing that struck me about Ludhiana is that it appears far more modern than Amritsar. Western style malls and food outlets (KFC!!) dot this charming city. Here I met Bharat who would be my new contact and got settled in a hotel. In my next post I shall tell you about my experiences interviewing volunteers in and around the city. I shall also tell you about the greatest autorickshaw driver of all time, or atleast that I have met. Cheers!

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

Field Work south of Amritsar

2009-05-03T01:33:00.000-07:00

I recently took a two hour bus ride south to the city of Jalandir (spelling could be incorrect). Thankfully we managed to board one of the few air conditioned buses which made the journey very comfortable. There was a large tv screen at the front of the bus that screened a very popular bollywood film that everyone on board enjoyed. This was the first such film I had watched and found what I could follow to be entertaining. This included a surprise music video during the closing credits starring, of all people, Snoop Dogg. I am fairly confident that this song was never released outside of India and hearing the famous south central LA former gangster rap along to Indian beats with traditonal Indian backround singers made my day.

When I arrived at the bus teerminus at my destination was waited for other pratham team members. Once they arrived we began to make out way torwards the exit when a new member on the team named Curran received an angry call from a governent education official. He insisted that we wait for him to arrive so he could personally drive us around to the schools. What he failed to mention was that he would take an hour to arrive. Valuable time was being wasted and the rising temperatures made everyone edgy. Once he arrived we set off in his car (the AC was predictably broken) towards our first school. About halfway there he informed us that we would be making a quick detour to visit a teacher training class. We tried in vain to convince him that it would be more valuable for us to go directly to the school as planned but he ignored these pleas. Before I go any further want to defend this official. His heart was clearly in the right place but he had clearly not understood the nature of my job. The training was interesting enough, but when he asked me in front of the entire group to say a few words I was taken aback. I nervously approached the podium and stammered out some cliched sentances about the value of education and children being the future. While both these things are very true, it would have nice to have actually prepared a short speech. Luckily I was told that most of the people assembled there could not understand me anyway. After this we left and I began the process of interviewing, which was far more successfull than my speech.

At one school I was told that for 250 children there were only 2 teachers, and the number of students were set to rise due to the success of the Parrho punjab english program. This program had convinced parents to allow their children to attend school regularly so as to learn English. They recognize that knowledge of this language is a powerful skill that these children will require if they want to move out of thier village and become successful in the wider world. The official even explained that some kids were leaving private schools and returning to the government schools in their area because of Parrho Punjab. If this is true then the volunteers recruited through Pratham become even more important to teach the children and help out at the school. Many of the volunteers I have spoken with all express a desire to teach (some even worked at the school before volunteernig for Parrho Punjab). Many want to study for a Bachelors degree so that they can apply of a government paid teaching job. At present they get no money and everyone who I have spoken to has stressed that this is the major point that stops many from volunteering. It would be impossible to pay even a small stipend for travel to these volunteers and there are just too many. The punjab state itself has over 10,000 schools each with a few volunteers. The costs would quickly become untenable. Despite these drawbacks, it is clear that the methods introduced by Pratham and Parrho Punjab work amazingly well. That has been the one constant (despite the money issue) between all of the interviews I have conducted. The amount of children in schools is slowly increasing and they are learning well, very well in fact.
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Visiting schools and meeting volunteers

2009-04-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

It has been long few days since my last post. On wednesday I boarded a public bus and took a hour ride to the town of Batala to visit two primry schools and interview those who work there.

The mercury in the thermometer was well above 100 degrees and I was really struggling with the heat. It was all worth it to meet some amazing volunteers and the children they teach. The emphasis in Prathams Parrho (read) Punjab program is to change the classroom dymanic in order to increase the speed and quality of the childrens learning. This involves the volunteers nd teachers leading the class in a number of learning games designed to make the class room a more interactive place for the student. In the past, the classroom dynamic consisted of a teacher lecturing while the young students quietly listened and took notes. This method was non existent at the schools I visited where I saw first hand children from each class leading their peers in reciting the alphabet. This was all the more impressive when I was told that only days before the majority of these children had no knowledge of the alphabet. Each child took turns leading the class in the recitation while the volunteer stood by to assist if necessary. In another game instituted by Parrho Punjab a hopskotch-like grid was drawn on the floor with individual letters drawn in each square. The kids, one at a time, were told to jump into a square with the correct letter when the teacher or volunteer prompted them. It was clear from the start that the kids loved this game and they were actually pushing and shoving each other in line so tht their turn could come sooner. I was told later that these and other games were designed with the cultural heritage of the Punjabi people in mind so as to make it even more engaging to the children.

On a more personal note, I am enjoying my time here in Amritsar. It is a very pleasant city (despite the at times unbearable heat) and I cannot wait to go and see its most famous monument, the Golden Temple. This temple is known as the spiritual center of the Sikh religion, similar to St. Peters in Rome and Mecca. The roof is made entitrely out of gold I am told and absolutely spectacular when it is lit up in the evening. In fact I mabout to head there right now. In the next post I shall write bout my time in Jalandar, which is a city two hours south ofAmritsar where I met more great volunteers, childrenand one very enthusiastic government official. Stay tuned...

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Amritsar and beyond

2009-04-29T02:51:00.000-07:00

First off I woudld like to apologize in advance for the shortness of this post. I arrived yesterday in Amritsar and took a rickshaw to my hotel after meeting my contact here in the Punjab. I like this region already. It is harvest time and everyone is in the feilds and things are lush, green and very hot. Unfortunately during this time many children are taken out of school to help the family with harvest. To make things worse this is exam period at the end of the school year so these children will not be tested which makes it even harder to gauge any progress made in their education. I will be conducting a number of interviews over the next few days with many people involved with Pratham in the area. The next post shall be filled with information and quotes (hopefully pictures as well) from these volunteers who work hard every day (for no pay) to get these children properly educated. Watch this space.

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

Welcome Back!

2009-04-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone. My name is Brent Phippen and I shall be continuing the fledgling tradition of Pratham summer bloggers. I hope that I can continue the high standards set by Pushkar and company last summer. I shall try my best. Before continuing allow me to introduce myself.

I was born in Seattle, Washington which is tucked away in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. For those unfamiliar with Seattle, here is a short list of what the city is famous for: suicidal musicians (including Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain), Starbucks, Mircrosoft and unending rain. At the tender age of three my father uprooted our family and transported us across the Atlantic to London, England. Upon graduating from high school in London I then attended New York University in New York City. I graduated from NYU in January of this year with a degree in History and absolutely no idea of what to do next.

Five years ago a few friends and I visited India. It was during this visit that I first heard of Pratham and the amazing work that they do to not only get young children into school, but ensure that they are learning well, (hence the title of this blog). A few months ago I contacted Pratham asking if I could help in any way and after numerous emails and a very long plane flight, I arrived in New Delhi four days ago.

Tomorrow I will board an early morning train out of New Delhi and ride the rails up to the city of Amritsar in the state of Punjab where I shall begin my work for Pratham in earnest. Along with writing this blog (hopefully daily) I shall also be attached to the Pratham team in Punjab. I shall be conducting interviews with the many people involved in Pratham's volunteer recruiting across Punjab from the rural to district and state levels. The goal of these interviews will be to identify what works well and what needs further improvement in the process of volunteer recruiting in the region. I am chomping at the bit to get started and cannot wait to begin.

I must sign off now as I have to venture out into Delhi to find myself a temporary cell phone for the duration of my time here in India. When I next post in this blog I shall be in Amritsar and settled in a hotel that shall be my home for the next few weeks. Thanks for reading!

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

It's hard being a Pratham Coordinator - Part II

2008-09-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is in continutation to Pushkar's previous post, here.

In Orissa, we (Pia and I) heard of how one Block Coordinator was abducted by the Naxalites. The reason? No, it wasn't that they were against Pratham's work (they are apparently only anti-state), they were simply very impressed with the coordinator's ability to convince and mobilize the villagers. And they decided to show their appreciation by abducting him and making him work for them. The coordinator stayed with them for some 2-3 days, and could make an escape only when they were transporting him somwhere, and made a stop to eat. He ran, and ran until he was a distance away and could flag a ride to safety.

In Punjab, I was told about how one mobilizer was assured by a girl of her participation as a volunteer over the phone. He called her up to fix up some details, and finally before the commencement of the Summer Camp training he reached her house to pick her up. There, her father accosted him and accused him of eyeing his daughter. He took away the keys of his motorcycle, kept him confined in the house and along with his relatives questioned him as to why he had been calling his daughter so often, and marvelled at his gall to now come and meet his daughter in person. The girl had of course not told her parents about Pratham or her wish to be a volunteer. It took many a-call to the Block and District Coordinators (and some name dropping - "ask the District Education Officer, what Pratham is") for the father to be convinced that it wasn't all a large, spread-out lie to trap his innocent daughter, and for him to release the poor boy.
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The Naag Panchami incident and the Pratham legacy

2008-09-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

You tend to run into adventures when you’re out there. We arrived at Bahtji village at about 6 o’ clock in the evening. The area was celebrating Naag Panchami by hanging temporary swings on trees, and with...alcohol. It was a fairly large village, and everyone’s eyes were trained on us as we entered in a car too big for those streets. Whose house were we going to, was the unsaid question on their lips. We were there to visit Manisha and Janabai Vakale, 2 of the 4 volunteers of the village. These girls were students of standard 12, and had taught the Anganwadi students in July-October 2007 and during the summer camp.

'Red India' the Pratham sign read at Bahtji

The modest house was filled to capacity by us; there were about 9 of us in about a room of 4 square metres. We were joined by the Upsarpanch of the village. Tea was served and I began to ask my questions about their experience with Pratham so far. As the girls began to speak, the Upsarpanch interrupted – “Excuje me Saar...”, and then he wouldn’t stop. The rest of the conversation was spent trying to keep him quiet.

He imagined that we were here to pay some money to the girls, without his permission or knowledge. And his drunken ego was not going to take that lying down. Here is what I caught of what he said – some intended for me in English, and to impress others – ‘I’m sorry’, ‘I’m a double MA from Baba Saheb Ambedkar University’, ‘ye mulgi’ (‘this girl’), ‘please keep quiet, I am talking’. The repeating refrain, though, was ‘excuse me sir, I’m sorry’.

Pandemonium ensued. People were arguing, shouting, mediating, and suppressing laughter. In all the confusion, the electricity went off. The village men were crowding in to the doorway, curious of us outsiders, blocking all sources of light.

After he attempted a scuffle with our state head (Vishwajit sir), someone led him away. The little interrogation we managed told us that the Panchayat wasn’t forthcoming, and Manisha and Janabai often found it difficult to convince the parents to send their children to the classes. Without the Panchayat’s support, the schools too weren’t supportive. Pratham wasn’t doing as well as it should have been doing, considering their achievements in neighbouring villages, and considering that there were 4 volunteers in the village.

Manisha and Janabai Vakale

Pratham Maharashtra puts large emphasis on creating awareness among villagers towards the cause of primary education. Vachan programmes are held regularly on a Sunday at a communal place, where the children are tested on their reading and mathematics in front of the parents. They are then taught by the volunteers. All this is in order for parent’s to see their child’s progress, whether it is in regular school or in the Pratham classes. Once the parent’s are aware of the situation, they are automatically involved. The Vachan programme brought together parents in large numbers initially, and now, even if the parents might not attend, they surely send their children.

If the Vachan programme doesn’t catch their attention immediately, the work of Pratham eventually does. Pratham makes itself known slowly and surely, everywhere I visited, by virtue of its commitment and achievement. The coordinators I spoke to at Aurangabad were full of stories of how the school principal first denied them even the verandah, later gave them a room right next to his own. Stories of how the village collected money to pay the volunteers as a thank-you, how the volunteers were invited by neighbouring villages to teach. How panchayats, parents and schools were waking up to the challenge awaiting them and extending their support to Pratham.

The Naag Panchami incident (as I like to call it) showed me how it would be if Pratham was working without this awareness and support of the village. And of course, it made me realise how important those things were.

In fact, almost everyone I met at Pratham Maharashtra realises that. Everyone at every level – right from Dr Gambhir of the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education who was working on the science material, to Vishwajit Sir, to Vijay Chauhan (the block coordinator for Bahtji) to the volunteers - held that one of the biggest achievements of the organisation (and not the most obvious one) was to create enthusiasm in the community about education.

And this environment that Pratham has created not only supports its work, but will outlast the Read India movement and will continue to bear fruit until much later. In fact, that is, I think, the Pratham legacy here.
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www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

Pratham Maharashtra and its women

2008-09-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-17T01:37:00.000-07:00

In Himachal Pradesh the last camps of the nationwide Summer Camp program were running. When I found out a team from Delhi was going to Himachal Pradesh to assess the Summer Camps I decided to join them and see what had been happening in this part of the country. Walking in Himachal Pradesh feels like taking a stroll through a Hindi movie love scene. There were flowers everywhere, and trees heavy with fruit were rustling overhead. The humidity was low and it wasn’t too hot – a blessing after the stifling Delhi weather – and when the clouds came in they wrapped the mountainside in a thin layer of mist and it would drizzle lightly. The mountains rose steeply behind us, but a wide fertile valley opened in front, speckled with paddy fields and winding rivers. Two block coordinators Anuradha and Sangeeta were accompanying us and together we made a merry team, chatting and laughing as we walked.

On the road to one of the camps we paused for a lunch of Sangeeta’s home grown mangos. They were small and yellowish on the inside – but so sweet! Juice ran down our face and hands as we slurped the delicious mango. We were visiting a village built on a tongue of land between two rivers that flood during the monsoon months, making the village inaccessible. We sat eating our mangos on the ridge of the riverbank, overlooking a valley that looked as though it had been untouched for hundreds of years. The village was very picturesque; the buildings were painted in rustic shades of indigo and green and in the cool shade of the verandah were wicker baskets for grain storage. Majestic roosters strutted in the lanes and lines of colorful washing were strung between the trees.

The school was set slightly apart from the rest of the village, standing alone on a small raised area. One room of the school had been opened for the summer camp, and inside we found thirty little faces sitting in their ability groups. Four young volunteers were waiting expectantly for us. It was dark inside the classroom, and I noticed a heap of rubble in one corner. One of the volunteers was newly married, still wearing her bangles and with henna on her hands. She was a little nervous, showing us how she had been using the summer camp material and calling the children up to recite songs and poems for us. There was a wide range of ages and abilities in the classroom. I tested some of the children in the ‘nothing’ group – children who had started the summer camp unable to recognize letters and numbers – and noted that they were all able to read alphabets in Hindi and calculate simple addition and subtraction, although some of the children were so shy that their answers were hardly audible. Some of the older children enjoyed playing with the currency Pratham had prepared for the summer camp. Using notes of 1, 10, 100 and 1000 the children were able to play games while practicing their mental arithmetic skills.

After visiting the school, we went to the home of one of the volunteers for tea. The summer camps had clearly been received well in this village – children had maintained or improved on their learning levels, and the volunteers told us about a rally that they held with the children to cement community support and enthusiasm. Anuradha and Sangeeta had taken the camp children on a picnic – an enormous treat for the children and their families. As we sat and chatted, a few curious children were peeping out of the windows and the sides of the buidings. It started to rain. We all sat around together, sipping our tea and watching the rain.

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

Back in Delhi

2008-08-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

Recently, data collected by the East Delhi office showed that the area still has a large number of children (c.11,000) who attend neither government school, nor Pratham’s direct (community-based) program. I spent two days in the field finding and interviewing some of these children in order to understand more about their circumstances and see how Pratham can better target this elusive group.

Visiting those bastis is something I shall never forget. The lanes were dark, narrow and filthy with open gutters, flea-ridden animals and the insects swarmed so thickly they hung like a veil across my path. The overcrowding was intense: families of five to six lived in rooms so small that I could cross them in a single stride and the smell was overpowering. Today we visited a basti in which Pratham does not operate a direct program. We asked the children whether they knew of Pratham and asked them about their levels of education, if any. We visited during school hours in the hope of catching the non-attendees at a time when parents might be at work (and children more able to answer our questions freely). We spoke to three families. In each case, we found young girls of about twelve to fourteen years at home with infant siblings, of which there were normally two or three. All three girls had lost their mothers. They told us that their fathers and brothers (often of about the same age) were working in factories making plastic home-wares such as tea strainers, or ironing and pressing clothes, and pulling rickshaws. Two girls told us that their brothers were able to read and write, although none of them had studied beyond third standard.

We had anticipated that children might have been working instead of going to school. We also suspected that many out of school children would be migrants – and they were – but not quite in the way we had expected. Many migrant families came to Delhi from rural areas for work, sometimes children came to the cities alone. Furthermore, seasonal migration prevents children from finishing their school year in the same place that they started. Today we discovered a further nuance to the problem of migration: many families and especially newly arrived migrants were constantly on the move, changing room every couple of months. But if the family moved out of their school catchment area, then the child would have to move to a new school. The process of re-enrollment was highly problematic and often children would be shut out of the school system till the beginning of the next academic year. Another girl explained that she tried to enroll her young brother in first standard, but he was ill with tuberculosis during the enrollment period. In fact, he was still weak and not yet fully recovered, and she said she would try to enroll him again next year.

The children talked of other barriers to education: the associated costs of school (school uniform, birth certificates etc) were too high, and fears of allowing children to walk to and from school alone. However, there was strong support for a direct program and general desire to attend school was high. It was interesting for me to be able to see the thorough planning and data collection process, to view the questionnaire design and the uninhibited interaction of the Pratham staff with the community. Pratham’s interventions thrive on community support and public will to bring about change, especially in the face of government underprovision. I left the field feeling happy and optimistic that before even establishing a presence in the basti, Pratham’s staff were excellent ambassadors for the cause and had sewn the first seeds of a good future relationship with the people we met today

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

2008-08-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

There are two forces invading the Bihari countryside: Pratham, and Amul Macho Male Innerwear (crafted for fantasies, of course).

Most of my weekend was spent on a colossal commute across Bihar: from Patna to Bettiah. I clattered down an old and deeply pot-holed lane/main road for seven hours in each direction on a visit to the Read India evaluation site. Luckily, with my eclectic group of companions and Amul adverts, the time flew by. (Enter Rukmini Ma’am, leading the charge with Michael Walton, an extremely well traveled Englishman and professor at Harvard; Mark, the Garba aficionado, Adrien, the nearly Bhojpuri film star, and me, trying not to think about sudden death by oncoming traffic).

Business as usual: elephant and camel in near miss with large truck

Bihar is lush and fertile: we were flanked by lychee orchards, banana groves, watermelon, rice and wheat fields all the way to Bettiah. Everything was so green I needed sunglasses to look out the window. At the same time, the poverty is severe and institutionalized, and it was fascinating for me to spend fourteen hours in conversation with people who are helping Bihar move in strides towards development. While there had been no teacher recruitment in Bihar for fifteen years, in 2005 the state government recruited 85,000 new teachers and Pratham designed and implemented the teacher training program. A further 115,000 teachers have been recruited since.

Once in Bettiah, it was truly exciting to see this in action: the very purpose of our trip was to oversee a workshop that was training project monitors to measure the impact of Read India properly. Leading the training were three very impressive young women: Afsha, Heena and Paribhasha. They were feisty and bright, and I couldn’t help but smile at the way the three young women were confidently commanding the attention and respect of fifty men. This was another opportunity for me to marvel at the incredible people that Pratham attracts and grooms. I also found the training interesting for two reasons: firstly, I enjoyed learning about the project testing methods. I was curious to know how the impact of Read India could be measured and evaluated. Secondly, this was my first direct exposure to the research and development side of Pratham. Pratham has a rigorous system of evaluating its impact, both at the point of designing program content and (like today) in order to evaluate the success of a program . This seemed such efficient cycle: Pratham’s literacy programs teach children faster than ever because materials are built exclusively around material that children respond well to, as determined by continuous investigation.

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

The world's best byriani

2008-08-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in Hyderabad, the team, along with Kishor Sir from Mumbai and the PCVC (Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children) were designing a survey to estimate the number of children in ‘visible’ employment – shops and restaurants – in commercial areas of Hyderabad. The pilot would be relatively simple. We decided to head towards Charminar, the symbolic fortress in the middle of Hyderabad’s old city, and our task was to record the name of every fifth shop, and whether or not we could spot any children at work inside.

The adventure began in Parveen Ma’am’s home. Fragrant and light, her home made Byriani was cooked to perfection. We sat like a pack of lions around the pots of food and indulged.

Four servings of Byriani later, the team was raring to go. And we needed the sustenance. Charminar was brimming, bustling, bursting with traders, customers, onlookers, tourists, passers by, pedestrians, vendors, scooters, autos, cars, buses, cycles, cows, dogs, cats, dust, smells, food, litter – humanity in all its variety was out in force and in a hurry when we arrived to survey at Charminar (needless to say, I was looking both incongruous and clumsy trying to juggle an umbrella, clipboard and pen and stay with the group in the middle of all this). The team split at Charminar: one team took the route to Madina through the pearl shops, another went to Purana Pul, and my team took on Ladh Bazaar and the bangle markets (this was very considerately organised so that I could roll sightseeing, bangle shopping, and surveying into one exercise).

The market was dazzling. Thousands of shimmering bangles were rustling and twinkling on the stall racks in every kind of size and colour, every thickness and pattern. Yet I astounded myself by getting so engrossed in the survey work that I forgot to buy bangles. The action on the street was much more interesting. We discovered not so many children working inside the shops, but many of them mingling independently on the street, selling handkerchiefs, safety pins, string, shoelaces. The kids were like firecrackers: bright, uninhibited and feisty.

‘Are you going to school?’ Kishor Sir asked one young boy, Secunder.

‘No, but why should I go to school? I earn 200 rupees per day.’

Our young friend had a point. 200 rupees was indeed a lot of money, especially in the hands of a ten year old.

‘Do you know many children who do the same work as you?’

‘Oh yes, I know all the kids. There are around five hundred in this area and we all get our goods from Firoz Bhai.’

‘Firoz Bhai??’ We leaned in, clipboard at the ready, to hear what else Secunder was going to tell us.

‘Yes! Let me take you to him! You have to meet him.’

The next thing we know, Firoz Bhai is explaining that if we want to educate these children we have to ask them if they want to go, because he only sells goods to them, the children do not work for him. Secunder, meanwhile, is energetically assuring us that school is a good idea, and he will not only find a room for us to hold classes but that he will also round up all the children working in the area and get them to attend.

When we later retold this story to everyone over some fresh samosas at Sunita Ma’am’s house, we discovered the others had also had similar encounters. Together we had spotted over 200 children in the Charminar area. I left Hyderabad just as Kishor Sir and his team were rolling up their sleeves to find out more.

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

Rafi Nagar Dump in Mumbai

2008-07-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

To add to Pia's post below, here's a map of Rafi Nagar Dump in Mumbai:

View Larger Map

And here we're being shown around by the Pratham Ward Coordinator Dilshad Khan of the area. This is what it looks like and sounds like at the edge of the dump during the monsoon...

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

...And they're off

2008-07-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

After settling in for a couple of days in Delhi, Pushkar and I went to Mumbai for a whirlwind visit. We were in and out in two days. Mumbai seemed to be a logical place for me to start my journey, since it was here that the first Pratham initiatives were originally launched in 1994. We managed to see and do a lot in just two days, but one of the most compelling field visits we made was to the Mohammed Rafi Nagar school, situated on the edge of the Rafi Nagar Dumping Ground. This sprawling landfill site is the main destination for rubbish from all over the city of Mumbai and it is, accordingly, huge. Many of the children living near the dumping ground, venture into it for work. They are rag pickers, trawling through the mountains of trash for scraps of metal, plastic, cloth; rather worryingly some collect medical refuse (which shouldn’t even be there in the first place, but…)

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the toughest areas of Mumbai. The school (the only one in the area) is in poor condition - large puddles yawned across the classroom floors and the walls, once beautifully painted with jungle and farm scenes, were faded and crumbling. Flies swarmed.

[Flies in a school window]

On account of the rain many teachers had not come in that day. Unsupervised pupils were running through the corridor and in and out of the classrooms. In the middle of this, a young Pratham CCP (Community Contact Person) was teaching the Urdu alphabet to a small group of children.

[Teaching Urdu with a magnetic board]

The children were rapt, loudly repeating after the volunteer as she held brightly colored alphabet magnets up against a white board. She was laughing and smiling, encouraging the children to ask questions and match up the magnets with the characters on their reading cards.

Later when we were chatting with her, I was fascinated to hear about the enormous impact Pratham had on her life. It was hard to imagine that the fiery and energetic girl before us had once been too shy to venture into the local market alone. She had passed most of her life in the house and she had never thought about working before Pratham offered her the opportunity. Today, she travels alone on the bus to attend meetings, she socializes independently of her family, and co-ordinates with parents in her local area to make sure attendance rates at school improve. She has decided to work for a few years before getting married, and has convinced her younger sister to study beyond 12th Standard. I started to think about the thousands upon thousands of volunteers all over the country that have been mobilized by Pratham. I wondered: how many other inspirational stories remain untold elsewhere?

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

Introducing Pia Gadkari & Shagun Khare

2008-07-28T06:23:00.000-07:00

As my summer travels wind down here in India, I write to introduce you all to Pia Gadkari of Pratham UK and Pratham-ite Shagun Khare who will start blogging for our Pratham blog "Every Child in School and Learning Well."

Pia finished a BA in History from Oxford and has been very involved in fund-raising for Pratham in the UK-- but I'll let her introduce herself fully. (If you're interested you can find pictures of Pia participating in a 10k run in order to raise money for Pratham UK at www.pratham.org.uk. I'd give you the direct link, but I think Pia would hit me if I shared those pictures...)

Shagun finished with a BA in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce at Delhi University and is currently enrolled in a Masters program in Quantitative Economics that has her studying all across Europe. In between studying in Germany and Spain she has come back to India for her summer break, and has generously offered to spend it with Pratham documenting the Read India movement. But I'll let her fill in the rest of the details...

______________________________________________________
www.readindia.org
www.pratham.org.uk
www.prathamusa.org
www.pratham.org

Updated Map

2008-07-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

Where has Pushkar been since June 6, 2008?

Here:

View Larger Map

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Nagaland (continued)

2008-07-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

(http://inschoolandlearningwell.blogspot.com/2008/07/nagaland.html)
CONTINUED...

After waiting for about 10 minutes I got a little bit antsy. In the distance I noticed there was one shop still open from where I could pay to call Honang. With my companion still complaining loudly about just waiting for Honang I set off towards the shop. This subdued the still unnamed man in black who followed me.

“Do you see him?” he asked.

I kept walking. From the phone booth I dialed Honang’s number. Ring, ring—beep, beep, beep. The number was busy.

I hung up frustrated, looked around, but still no Honang in sight. I saw lightning flash off in the distance.

“What happened?” He asked.

“It was busy,” I said. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

After a minute of tense silence, I spoke, “How much would it be for you to take an autorickshaw from here to your home.”

“Ehhh… 20-30 Rupees.”

“That’s all?” I thought to myself. I then realized how tight our man’s finances must have been. “Ok, no problem. I’ll pay for it.” This diffused his tension quite a bit, but with a storm brewing in the distance and shady looking men on their Honda Heroes who were becoming more and more curious about our presence, I turned around to try Honang on the payphone again, but found the shop closing.

[A Honda Hero]

The phone was my golden ticket to get me off these Dimapur streets and away from the clutches of John Carpenter's boogey-men floating around in my imagination; I knew I’d have to reach Honang to get out of this situation.

“Sir, I really need to use the phone to call my friend.”

“Just wait, he’ll come meet you soon, I’m sure.”

“No sir, he was supposed to meet me 15 minutes ago (an exaggeration) and I’m not sure where he is.”

“Where are you from?” he asked me.

“Delhi,” I said, trying not to draw any extra attention to myself.

He looked at me for a minute, maybe trying to place my accent. He looked out at the empty streets. And in a moment of generosity (or was it pity?) he took out his own mobile and said “Oh, ok. What is the number?”

I gave the shopkeeper the number and he called Honang. The shopkeeper told Honang where we were (Honang had been waiting at the Stadium; I had gotten impatient and left before he arrived) and a few minutes later he pulled up in front of the shop.

I thanked the shopkeeper for his help and greeted Honang. Honang looked at the man in black, confused. I explained he was a friend and flagged down an autorickshaw. While the man with no name had said the auto ride would only be about 30 Rs., the auto driver said it would be 100 Rs. for the trip.

I thought the man in black might have smoothly baited me into agreeing to pay for his (expensive) ride home, but quickly realized that he had probably never taken an auto home from here and did not know what the cost would be.

So I paid the auto driver and the short man in black jumped into the back seat, smiling for the first time that night. “Thank you, I hope we’ll meet again,” he said.

“Yes, me too… though next time I hope it’ll be during the day.”

The auto took off and I jumped in Honang’s car-- finally safe from barking dogs, shifty-eyed Honda heroes, and my own imagination.

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Nagaland

2008-07-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

Written July 6th

After 7 wonderfully productive (and enjoyable) days in Assam, I was very sad to say goodbye to the first-class staff of Pratham Assam. This morning the State Coordinator, Ashok and I, drove from the heavy tea-growing city of Dibrugarh to the smaller town of Golaghat. In Golaghat he put me on a bus to Dimapur, Nagaland where I would begin a short stay visiting Pratham programs there.

On the 2-hour bus ride I remembered some of the things I had heard about Dimapur. Though it was the business center of Nagaland, it was also supposed to be a pretty forgettable town. Ashok had also mentioned that the town would close at dusk and that I shouldn’t go out alone in the city at night.

When I asked him why not, he told me that after dark there were only drugs, prostitutes, and crime in the streets. I told him that I’d seen too many kids summer camps in Assam and that I wouldn’t mind visiting an “adult summer camp” at night in Dimapur.
He didn’t think that was funny.

In the back row of a rusting, rickety bus, I stared out onto the green fields of Assam. After about half an hour the sun began to set and I realized that I’d arrive in Dimapur after dark.

My mind drifted and I imagined the worst Dimapur might look like at night—dogs howling in the empty streets, all homes and shops shut, while roving bands of prostitutes partied with drug dealers, all to the sounds of vandals smashing cars and lighting trash cans on fire—well, maybe this was a little extreme. I mean this was India not John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (plus there aren’t any trash cans in India…). Debating these thoughts in my head, I soon fell asleep.

[The poster from John Carpenter’s 1971 Escape from New York]

Before leaving me on the bus, Ashok had found a man on the bus that was also going to Dimapur. He introduced me to this Hindi-speaking stranger (in his late twenties, short and dressed in all black) and told me to go with him once I reached Dimapur. An hour later I awoke and noticed we were arriving at the Nagaland border (Dimapur is a border town).

The bus came to a stop and I grabbed my bags. I stepped down onto the side of a dark dusty road that was eerily quiet. I found the man in black Ashok had spoken to waiting impatiently for me. We made eye contact and he briskly started walking away. I jogged to catch up with him and after a couple of questions discovered that the bus did not go directly to Dimapur, but stopped outside the town. I asked the man with no name if he had a mobile phone (because mine wasn’t working… http://inschoolandlearningwell.blogspot.com/2008/06/airtel-nowhere.html) and he tersely replied, “no.” The man in black moved quickly forward, taking the longest strides a short man could. I followed him towards Dimapur town, while keeping my eyes out for trouble.

15 minutes later we came upon a phone booth and I called Honang, a friend and Pratham ASER Associate, who I would be staying with. We agreed to meet at a football pitch on the outskirts of town. I hung up the phone and continued walking with my impatient companion.

We reached the unlit football pitch, and stood outside waiting for Honang. All the shops were closed by this point and the only life on the streets were irritated street dogs looking for a meal and a couple of small groups of men sitting on motorcycles smoking cigarettes, laughing quietly to themselves. A traveler with bags alone with an impatient, short man, I stuck out like a Punjabi in Nagaland (which I was).

“Where is your friend?” asked the stranger in black, I’d met only minutes ago—who was now my only crutch. “I can’t wait here, I have to move.”

“Where are you going?” I asked, trying to stall.

“I live Far away, I’ll reach by 1am.”

“How will you get there.”

He patted his legs, “walking.”

I contemplated a 4-hour walk in these rough conditions and noticed that the motorcycle crew was eyeing me eagerly… I clutched my bags tight, and looked off into the distance for Honang.

TO BE CONTINUED...

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

The Best Summer Camp in India…at least in my opinion

2008-07-26T06:35:00.001-07:00

Written July 3, 2008

Today I saw, without a doubt, the most exciting summer camp in all my travels.

In a village called Morhisha in the major tea-producing District of Dibrugarh, Assam Abhijit, Surjya, Ashok, and I arrived at a school where we saw a large group of children playing in the courtyard. As we approached the children ran inside—it seemed like they did not want us to know they were playing.

This was just the first clue that something unique was going on. After introducing ourselves as the sponsors of the summer camp—and not some rigid government officials, the children went out into the courtyard again. Within moments about 90 children had created a large circle on the veranda, and became spectators for a performance. Without any coaching from the volunteers who ran the camp, 2 boys jumped center stage and began to perform a scene from one of the Pratham picture story cards.

Moments later 3 other boys jumped onto the stage and performed another scene

And after that 2 girls performed a well-rehearsed bharatnatyam dance.

And after that a girl stood up and sang a song… then another girl recited a poem…

I had seen students recite poems and songs in summer camps and classrooms before, but I always felt like those students were being put on display to impress us. What was different here was the way the students themselves were engaging their own creativity and expressing themselves for the pure enjoyment of it. And the enormous class size (again about 90) demonstrated that the students loved it.

One of Pratham’s main objectives of holding summer camps has been to create a lively, fun atmosphere where students would enjoy themselves (in turn generating strong attendance from children) while they developed their reading, writing, and math skills. In all my travels—from Punjab to Gujarat to here—this camp was the first one to unquestionably reach this goal, and it was only 3 days into the one-month long summer camp.

[Kids in the Morhisha summer camp]

After spending almost 45 minutes with the children, I wanted to see who was responsible for this wonderful work. So I introduced myself to Padma Das, a petite and gregarious woman in her early-forties, with 2 children attending the camp. I asked her how many volunteers there were, and she introduced me to 4 other women.

[The Morhisha summer camp volunteers with Ashok, Abhijit, me, and Surjya]

Padma said that they were long-time friends who all had grown up in Morhisha and were looking for a way to boost education in the community. “When we met the Pratham Block Coordinator at a Gram Sabha meeting, we liked the idea of a summer camp,” she said. “When we found out that the local government education officer was not going to open up the school for the summer camp, we went to his office and convinced him to allow us to use these grounds.”

A child walked by and showed Surjya a color drawing he had made. Surjya commended the child on his picture, and Padma told me that the following week a professional visual artist would be coming in to teach the children to draw.

[Kids in the Morhisha summer camp drawing]

At that point I asked, "Why are you running the summer camp?" and Padma replied, "Because we love our children and they need it. And even if Pratham doesn't help us, we'll do it again next summer-- no one can stop us."

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Flooding in Guwahati

2008-07-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

The following video clip depicts the results of heavy rains in Guwahati in early July 2008. While in many areas Guwahati has very deep gutter-systems in place to swallow these rains, these gutters often fill up with rainwater which then carries the sewage in the gutters into the streets.

In order to document this unsanitary flooding for you, the blog-reading public, I ventured out into the flooded streets to have lunch at a cafe close to the Pratham office in Guwahati.

What follows is a brief video documentation of my trip to and from said cafe.

Video Breakdown:
-Leaving the office (against the suggestions of my colleagues)
-Walking to the cafe (with my colleagues watching from above)
-Watching life underwater on R.G. Baruah Road, from the dry island of the cafe
-My favorite part of the clip: 1 minute 10 seconds in
-Returning back to the office (a little smarter this time)

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
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It’s Hard Out Here to Be a Pratham Coordinator

2008-07-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Four of us left Guwahati last night for 2 Districts in eastern Assam, Golaghat and Dibrugarh. Ashok (the well-educated, Pratham veteran, now State Coordinator), Abhijit (the deeply focused, former-student activist), Surjya (Abhijit’s young, thoughtful, smiley sidekick), and me (the clueless Indian-American with a camera) rode together with our pleasant, musician-in-his-heart-but-currently-employed-as-a-driver, Rabha.

Though I thought I would just fall asleep on the overnight ride, it was such a fun, interesting group I was happy to stay up and talk. One of the first questions I asked as we rode through the dark, winding roads surrounded by deep-green tea gardens, was about insurgent groups in Assam. I got a long, complicated answer which Ashok ended with “just look it up on Wikipedia…” I then asked about a bombing I had read about in The Assam Tribune that morning—

“What was that bombing about?”

I was brushed off, “Oh just insurgents groups killing innocent people for attention.”

“Oh… where was it?”

“In Nagaon District.”

“Where is Nagaon District?”

“We’re driving through it now.”

At that point I stopped asking questions…

Around 5:00 AM Ashok and I arrived in Golaghat District. We met Bhupin, the District Coordinator, who showed us a room in his home. We went to sleep then, but at about 7:00 AM I woke up when I heard Ashok on the phone.

“Sorry to wake you, Pushkar, but it was important: one of our District Coordinators was just attacked by a jackal.”

“What?”

“Well it seems that a jackal wandered into his house and when they saw each other both of them got very scared. The jackal attacked our District Coordinator and cut up his face, hands, and stomach—but he’s ok now, he’s in the hospital getting stitches.”

Fortunately this seemed to be an isolated, fluke incident. But unfortunately jackals aren’t the only ones picking on Pratham Coordinators.

[Derhasat Brahma, Pratham Block Coordinator]

In Kokrajhar District, I learned of the story of Derhasat Brahma, a Pratham Block Coordinator who visited the Sarpanch (village mayor) in the village of Gomabil on May 21st in order to try to get support for a Pratham summer camp in the village. After having a relatively productive meeting, Derhasat rode his bike back to his home in another village.

Just as he was getting to his front door, he was approached by 2 men who asked him for identification. It turns out that these men were from the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and that Gomabil village was in NDFB territory. The men suspected Derhasat of “spying” on NDFB activities for a rival organization under the cover of Pratham. After trying to confirm Derhasat’s identity, the NDFB men took him to a NDFB office and with a group of others interrogated him.

After 4 hours, the NDFB guys finally let Derhasat go. Derhasat said although it was a very intimidating atmosphere, the men were actually pretty kind.

Since then, the Pratham District Coordinators in Kokrajhar have announced to key government— and non-government officials— that Pratham will be hosting camps in Kokrajhar, in order to avoid these kind of problems in the future.

At the end of my conversation I asked Derhasat if he would go back again to Gomabil. His answer? “Yes, I have to go back there—it’s my job.”

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

First Day of Summer Camps in Assam

2008-07-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

I met the Kampur District Coordinator this morning for breakfast at about 8:30am. Since today was the first day of summer camps in Assam, he was a busy, nervous, and taking a number of phone calls during the meal. At about 9am he picked up a 5th phone call, spoke in Assamese (which I don't understand), then looked at me and said:

“A camp is now starting, Pushkar, please say some inspirational words to them.”*
He then handed me the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, sir! We have you on speakerphone and are waiting for something inspirational. Please share!”

These are the kind of things I fall into on some days.

After imparting concise world-class wisdom and philosophical force (not really), we finished up with breakfast (which was excellent-- go to Maharaja Dhaba in Kampur if you can) and then moved on to see the start of summer camps in Assam.

On the first day of every summer camp across the country, teachers are expected to do “baseline” tests to determine what level of comprehension their students are at. Please see the brief video clip below to watch baseline testing in Assam.

*For the record, I’m fairly positive Pranav passed me the phone not because he thought I was inspirational, but just because he didn’t want to do it himself…

______________________________________________________
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Assam

2008-06-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

The Assamese chapter of Read India, known as “Porhim, Hikim” (Assamese for “Read & Learn”) was launched in August 2007. An ambitious program, cosponsored by the Assam SSA Ministry and UNICEF, was focused on training 32,000 teachers with better teaching techniques in all of Assam’s 23 districts.

Due to poor performance by the Assamese SSA Ministry in 2007, in addition to teachers’ heavy skepticism of SSA programs, in August 2008 “Porhim, Hikim” will partner only with UNICEF in an effort to win stronger teacher support. This time around Pratham and UNICEF will target specific Tea Garden schools in 11districts in Assam. Tea Garden Communities are mostly populated by laborers who are generally paid poorly to work in tea gardens collecting tea leaves. Tea Garden Communities are a very large population of Assam, as it is estimated that Assam provides 1/6 of the world’s tea.

[An Assamese Tea Garden]

However, before teacher training begins in August the Assam state team has taken on the major task of putting on summer camps in 22 of 23 Districts in Assam, and the massive mobilization of people underway here for the summer camps is incredible. In mid-April this year, the ~40 Pratham District Coordinators (DCs) hired a total of 423 “Cluster” Coordinators (CCs) [note: a “cluster” is defined as about 40-50 schools] to work for 4 months to mobilize thousands of volunteers in rural Assam and oversee the successful implementation of summer camps in their clusters.

Pratham Assam’s summer camp objectives are the same as other camps I have visited: to raise children’s comprehension up 1 level in reading and mathematics.

Tomorrow Ashok and I head out to visit the autonomous District of Kokrajhar as they are having a special inauguration of the summer camps for the District, and they expect many local officials to come out for it.

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Airtel Nowhere

2008-06-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

I stepped into the cab and told the driver to take me to “Zoo Road Tiniali,” the area where the Pratham Assam office is. Sitting in the back seat, I looked around at the lush, green plants and stout trees that lined the road we set off on. Small billboards stood atop metal poles on the stone divider that separated the driving lanes and announced:
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere
Airtel Everywhere

I switched on my Airtel phone (I swear this is not an Airtel commercial…) to let Mutum Ashok, the Assam State Coordinator, that I was on my way. The phone turned on and strangely gave me zero-bars of reception. Hmmm… but what about
Airtel Everywhere?
Airtel Everywhere?
Airtel Everywhere?

An hour later, while having lunch with Ashok on the patio of an outdoor restaurant in Guwahati, Assam’s main city, he explained to me that because of heavy insurgency-movements in the Northeastern states of India the Indian government blocks the signal of pre-paid telephones (like BOOST-mobile in the US) because the government believes insurgency groups could use prepaid phones to carry out their anti-state activities. No phone for 10 days.

He then explained that my Pratham-issued Reliance Datacard, which allows me to access the internet through the Reliance mobile phone network (this entry is basically going to be one long advertisement…) would not work either for the same reasons. No internet/email for 10 days. And so, no blogging for 10 days...

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Saying Bye in Gujarat

2008-06-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

After visiting multiple villages in Gujarat, relieved that the Pratham Teaching Learning Material had been distributed to the Anganwadis by the state government, and satisfied by the teaching methods the Anganwadi workers were using, I traveled with Vasant (a Pratham Gujarat 6-year veteran) to the village of Raipur in the Gandhinagar District of Gujarat.

When we arrived at the Anganwadi there, we found 30 children in lines with plates in their hands. It seemed that the Sarpanch (the elected community leader) was hosting a lunch for the entire village to mourn the passing of his father and that the children were preparing to head out for that. While we were speaking with the Anganwadi worker, a large tractor pull up in front of the school. Behind the tractor was a large flatbed and we realized that was how the kids were traveling to the Sarpanch’s home. The kids eagerly jumped onto the flatbed and I (just as eagerly) ran over to get some pictures. When the tractor had left and we had finished speaking to the Principal, we set off to go back to Ahmedabad on Vasant’s motorcycle. On the road, we caught up to our friends…

(Look out for the Principal of the school as he rides by us with a handkerchief around his head, and be sure to watch to the end to catch a quick cameo by the daring filmaker himself-- me.)

______________________________________________________
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How Old Are These Kids?

2008-06-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a strange, confusing story:

The academic school year started this week and in the village of Bhakodra in the Ankleshwar Block of the Bharuch District we visited an Anganwadi (government-sponsored kindergarten) to see how the new year was going. But when we arrived at 10:15am (Anganwadis open at 10) there were only 5 children there and more importantly no Anganwadi worker.

The assistant to the worker, who was there instead, told us that the government supervisor of Anganwadi workers in the area had called a meeting for all Angawadi workers. While I was very skeptical of this at first, the Anganwadi worker’s daily log had a note (dated yesterday) written by her supervisor that said she was calling a meeting for all Anganwadi workers. So that seemed legitimate.

But then...
the assistant Anganwadi worker told us that with the academic year starting this week, all 4 year-olds in the village had been sent to start Std I. The Pratham worker I was with told me that all across Gujarat 4 year-olds were being shifted into Std I. This wasn't right.

So I called into the Ahmedabad office to double-check the facts. Those in the office confirmed that only 5 & 6 year-olds (not 4 year-olds) should not be placed in Std I. They also suggested that we speak with those at the Primary school to see what was going down.

At the Primary school we spoke with the Principal. The Principal told us that only 5 year-olds were enrolled in Std I and that the assistant Anganwadi worker was wrong. I was a little relieved, but with all the confusion in the town, I was not convinced that this was happening, so I thought it would be useful to talk with the kids in Std I.

The Principal walked us to the Std I classroom and told me the students were all 5. I looked around the class and saw a tiny girl in her blue uniform and I asked her how old she was. The Principal told me she was too young and wouldn’t know her age, but she proved him wrong and replied “Four.” We then checked with all the kids in the class and we found that 6 of 35 kids were 4 years-old. To me this was a problem.

The Principal then told me that if the children would be 5 by August 1^st they were considered 5 and fit for Std I. I was very skeptical of this, and tried to ask some of the children there birthdate. My Pratham colleague translated my Hindi into Gujarati but it seemed like the children did not know their birthdates. I asked for documentation, records, etc. but was told it was too early in the year and that they did not have them yet.

It was a very strange visit in Bhakodra, from the Anganwadi worker not being there, to the confusion over the children's age. I was frustrated not to be able solve the problem, but sometimes things just work out that way...

______________________________________________________
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Gujarat

2008-06-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

I flew to Delhi from Patna last night, and this afternoon flew to Ahmedabad-- quick, cross-country traveling! I reached the Pratham Gujarat office around 6pm and sat with State Head Deepak Dogra, who explained how Pratham Gujarat has taken a different approach to summer camps than anywhere else in the country.

For over a year the Gujarat state Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan Ministry (with the mission to make sure all children are enrolled in school) has focused on enrolling 5 year-old children into Standard I (Std I--1st grade-- which children usually enter at the age of 6) in order to reduce the number of 6 year-olds out of school. Like it or not, this new policy has been successful, as demonstrated by the 33% increase of 5 year-olds enrolled in government schools shown in the table "In pre-school (Balwadi/Anganwadi) or in school 2006 vs. 2007" on page 119 of the ASER 2007 Report.

In order to complement the government's approach Pratham Gujarat has chosen to focus its summer campaign on ensuring that these 5 year-olds are sufficiently prepared when they enter Std I. So this summer Pratham's objective is to make 5 year-old children who will be entering Std I in mid-June (soon) proficient in reading letters and identifying numbers.

But how? Pratham's answer in Gujarat is to train government Anganwadi (kindergarten) workers with Pratham techniques. In April, with the permission of the Gujarat state government, Pratham trained approximately 35,000 Anganwadi workers all across Gujarat. The workers, who work in about 18,000 villages, were also supplied with Pratham-created Teaching Learning Material (TLM) distributed to the anganwadi workers by the state of Gujarat.

It will be interesting visiting Anganwadis after seeing only summer camps to this point. I'll be in Gujarat for the next 2 days and will write soon on what I see.

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

The Music of Gyanshalas

2008-06-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

Bihar is state that has continually been ravaged by river flooding. In August 2007,

"State Disaster Management department sources said over 11 million people spread over 4,822 villages in Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, East Champaran, Supaul, Darbhanga, Patna, Bhagalpur, West Champaran, Katihar, Madhubani, Samastipur, Sheohar, Nalanda, Khagaria, Gopalganj, Madhepura, Araria and Begusarai were affected by the floods." (http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=90467)

Devasting flooding combined with a variety of other factors (including a lack of employment opportunities and poverty) has led to heavy migration from Bihar. Migration is especially prevalent in the Sitamarhi District (where we are now) which is a major source for child labourers working across India. For many years Pratham has worked to break this cycle and free children from labouring in big cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. One Pratham initiative has gone the distance and returned Bihari child migrants back to their home districts in Bihar. With their parents consent many of these boys have entered Pratham Gyanshalas (meaning "Gyan" Knowledge "shala" School) which provides lodging, 3 meals a day, tutoring services, and a caring community. There are 6 Gyanshalas in Bihar, 4 in Sitamarhi and 2 in the Kishanganj District.

Rukmini and I stayed in a Gyanshala in Sitamarhi and last night at about 10pm we spoke with the ~30 boys. They asked me all sorts of questions about being from America and asked Rukmini even more questions about her work-related visit to Pakistan (she had only good things to say).**

This afternoon (after visiting 4 summer camps) we stopped by another Gyanshala in Sonbarsa Block where I met Muhammed Quyum.
Muhammed is from the village of Davrimore (near Silampur) and had never been to school before he moved to Delhi to work at a Zari (embroidery factory) at age 9. He spent about half a year working in a tight, cramped room before finally moving back to Bihar to live and study in a Pratham Gyanshala. Muhammed has been living in the Gyanshala for 2-and a half years now, and while he was shy and timid, he still possessed a rough exterior which made it difficult to fully engage him.

We learned that Muhammed was a great singer and he was brought a tabla to perform. Please watch this video below; it is one of the most touching and painful performances I have ever seen. Muhammed sings a song called "Kahai Tune Mujko Bombay Bhejah?" which translates to "Why did you send me to Bombay?" The song is about a young boy in a sweatshop who sings to his mother, asking "why did you send me away?" and "please bring me back home."

While Muhammed sang this song, many of his peers hummed along in unison. Watching them all share in this song together was both heart-breaking and empowering. After all they've been through, it's difficult to understand how these boys could smile as large as they did, and be as kind and welcoming as they were. Even though they have had a very tough past, it looks to me that with Pratham's help they each have promising futures.

**Side-note Highlight of the Day (continued from above):

At the end of this impromptu class session Rukmini asked Arun, one of the boys there known as a great musician, to sing a song in Bhojpuri (a Bihari language). After he finished, she looked at me and said, "Pushkar, why don't you sing a song in English for them?" I definitely wasn't expecting that. After a moment of heavy anticipation-- with all the boys staring at me-- I began.

Sometimes in our lives,

We all have pain,

We all have sorrow.

But if we are wise,

We know that there's

Always tomorrow...

I was singing Bill Wither's "Lean on Me." I gathered my courage and as I sang louder (and more soulfully...) I even got some of them--the ones who realized I needed a friend-- to begin clapping along with me. I finished and was greeted with mild applause and a lot of giggling. After we translated the song into Hindi so the boys could clearly understand the song's meaning, I received a much more enthusiastic applause.

And then? Rukmini suggested we teach each other the songs.

20 minutes later I had 6 interested pupils arranged in a standing chorus, reading the lyrics (in English) off of my notebook (while trying to get them to understand me through my American accent). I wish I could say it was a success.

It was a monumental undertaking for them,

it was a surreal moment for us all,

but when the tonal chaos of the exercise finally ended, the boys pulled out a harmonium and tabla and we filled the entire Gyanshala with another type of soul music.
______________________________________________________
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Double-Double

2008-06-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

We were sitting in our maroon Tata Sumo musing on what we had seen.

2 days of visits to summer camps in Sitamarhi District in the state of Bihar and what had we seen? 7 villages, almost 30 teachers, and hundreds of children.

Now at Jainagar, a village on the Nepalese border, we had arrived just a few minutes late and the camp was just letting out. There were 6 of us and a driver in our team. While half our team had stepped out to talk with the teachers at the camp, Dr. Rukmini Banerji, I, and Manoj of the Pratham Bihar team reflected one our travels.

"They're too much like regular classes," Rukmini, Pratham's North India Director said. "They're not energized enough." I was confused by this statement as I had been overwhelmed by the success of the Bihar camps; there were more children in these camps than any I had seen (90 children were at the Dhostia camp we visited, and they were well-organized and had been split into 5 separate groups based on their comprehension levels)-- but here was Rukmini focusing on how to improve the camps. "We need to spend more time on training our volunteers with summer camp specific activities, so they don't slip into the habit of just teaching a class-- it's summer, this should be fun!"

And just then a thin, 8 year-old boy with books in his hands ran passed our car.

"Want to play a game?" Rukmini asked in Hindi.

The boy stopped, stood up very straight, and looked up at her confusedly. Another boy, running out of the camp, stopped beside his peer and stared up at Rukmini.

"It's called double-double. I'll say a number, then you double it. Ok? Ok: one."

"Two!" the boys shouted out.

"Now double that."

"Four!"

"And next?"

"Eight," the boys said in unison.

By now more children had stopped and joined the game.

"Sixteen!" the group called out.

"After that?"

"Thirty-two!"

A crowd was growing outside Rukmini's open car door, as the number of children double-doubled exponentially faster than the numbers in the game. Taking one of the children's mini-blackboards and chalk, she began to lead another game. Parents and school teachers soon joined the crowd and the laughter as she interacted with the children.

Only minutes after arriving at a summer camp that had already ended for the day, I watched as Pratham's North India Director charmed an entire group of children-- and their community; getting them to stay on passed the end of their scheduled day, while at the same time demonstrating to local teachers how a summer camp could be magnetic, fun, and still educational.

And me? I soaked up the scene. And then with a big smile on my face, I shot this video to share the moment with you all.

After about 30 minutes, we began to pack up to leave, but the children wouldn't let us be. They wanted more games, more questions, more fun! And then as we finally began to drive away, the kids did something that I'd only seen in movies before-- they ran behind our car yelling, laughing, waving to us in pure joy. As we drove off, leaving the tidal wave of Jainagar's children in our wake, I sat back in my chair and was reminded of why I work for Pratham.

______________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
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Bihar

2008-06-15T01:43:00.000-07:00

"24 hours ago I was on the border of India & Pakistan; today I can see Nepal.

I arrived in Delhi from Amritsar last night at 11pm and flew to the capital of Bihar, Patna, this morning at 10am. I'm traveling to the Sitamarhi District (which borders on Nepal) with Pratham North India Director, Rukmini Banerji, who helps coordinate Pratham's Bihar programs and is my mentor on this project.

On the plane this morning (while half-asleep, but don't tell her...) I interviewed Ma'am about the Bihar summer camp program and Pratham's history in Bihar. Here's a condensed version of the interview:

A great intro to Pratham's work in Bihar is available at the PrathamUK YouTube channel (narrated by the best voice I've ever heard in my life):

Pratham in Bihar

(http://www.youtube.com/PrathamUK)

Pratham's first venture into summer camps was in the summer of 2006 in Bihar (touched on in the film above). These camps were for girls ; girls who had not been to school before and for girls who were in school but were not able to read fluently. The 2006 summer camps were carried out jointly by three partners: Bihar Education Project (BEP, which is the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Ministry of the Bihari Government), Pratham, and UNICEF. Throughout the summer vacation in June, these summer camps ran in 2 blocks of every district in Bihar.

The successful experience of the summer camps led Pratham, BEP, and UNICEF to work in a more long-run partnership. A larger joint program called "Sankalp" was launched in late 2006 in 7 of Bihar's most educationally weak districts. The aim of Sankalp was to improve basic learning levels and ensure that all children were enrolled in school and attending regularly. Pratham integrated its Read India campaign into Sankalp. In 2008, 10 more districts have been added to the Sankalp program.

For the 2008 summer camps in Bihar, the target groups are children in Std 3, 4 and 5 who are not yet able to read sentences or do simple arithmetic operations. The aim is that by the time regular schools open in July, children who had fallen behind academically will have made up lost ground. To reach this goal, 2 government school teachers or para-teachers will work in school during the summer and will be joined by 1-2 village volunteers who have been mobilized by Pratham. While government summer camps will run in all schools in the state; in 20 districts, Pratham teams will serve as volunteers while other Pratham members will constantly visit schools, observing camps and supporting teachers and volunteers.

Bihar has 37 districts and about 65,000 government primary schools. Pratham has a presence in 19 districts and has mobilized close to 50,000 volunteers - 1 or 2 village volunteers in each one of 30,000 villages/schools. In all summer camps should benefit close to 3.5 million children across the state.

Side-note highlight of the day:
During a large meeting this evening with all Sitamarhi Block Coordinators, I noticed one Block Coordinator wearing a purple t-shirt with the words "Apes Never Kill Apes" on it-- a reference to The Planet of the Apes movies... I didn't know that the Pratham Bihar team was so well-versed in late 60s American sci-fi cinema....
______________________________________________________
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Golden Temple at Amritsar

2008-06-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

While in Amritsar I went to visit the Golden Temple in the evening. The Temple is a spectacular site, a golden island shining at the center of a lake of water and worshippers. Just incredible.

______________________________________________________
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List of Punjabi Villages Visited

2008-06-14T02:37:00.000-07:00

Hard work pays off.

That's me in the red, hitting for six.

After a week of hard work, we were able to fit a little cricket in. As for my travels over this last week, I thought it would be nice to list the names of all the villages I visited in Punjab in one place. Maybe someone reading this is from one of these villages? Maybe not...

District: Ludhiana
Block: Ludhiana II
Villages:
-Hassanpur
-Bhadowal
-Jhandeh
-Threeke

District: Gurdaspur
Block: Pathankot
Villages:
-Jhanjheli
-Pangoli
-Chhaki

Block: Dhariwal I
Villages:
-Rania
-Santanagar

Block: Pathankot I
Villages:
-Dhangror

Block: Batalla II
Villages:
-Kandial
-Kotlipansingh
-Bhadrepure

District: Amritsar
Block: Amritsar I
Villages:
-Ramapura
-Chitrakhurp
-Mahama

Block: Amritsar VI
Villages:
-Pandori
-Chatiwind

______________________________________________________
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Final Day in Ludhiana

2008-06-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my final day in Ludhiana, and it coincided with the monthly meeting of all Pratham District Coordinators (PDCs) in Punjab meeting with the two State Head Directors, Bharatdeep Singh Malhi and Ronald Abraham, with whom I’d been working and staying with in Ludhiana. The Pratham Punjab program is just about 2 years old and has recently ratcheted up their work dramatically preparing for Parrho Punjab (the local version of Read India) which will work very closely with the State Ministry of Education in order to improve education dramatically across the state.

The breadth of this program is unbelievable, for example: Pratham Punjab recently hired almost 150 more Block Coordinators in the span of a few weeks when the government agreed to fully participate in the program.

It is worth noting that during my time in Ludhiana I witnessed Ronald and Bharat's extraordinary commitment and exceptional work. Ronald has a BA in Economics from St. Stephens College at Delhi University (which people—Stephanians at least—claim is the Harvard of India) and worked for a policy think-tank in Delhi before joining the Pratham national Research/Analysis group and was vital to the success of the 2006 & 2007 ASER reports, in addition to numerous other projects.

Like Ron, Bharatdeep’s 2-year anniversary with Pratham is at the end of this July. Bharat was born and raised in Ludhiana, and completed a BA in Economics/Geography/English and an MA in Geography. After this he received a scholarship from the Norwegian government to get his MPhil in Developmental Studies from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Three days after he finished in Norway he returned to Ludhiana to begin work as the first State Head of Pratham Punjab.

See both of these passionate men talk more about Pratham’s work in Punjab below:

At the end of a long day of meetings with Pratham District Coordinators, Ron and Bharat presented a certificate to Baljinder Singh of Gurdaspur District for Outstanding work as a PDC. The certificate and a 500 Rs. prize is given out monthly to a deserving PDC to encourage quality work for the PDCs (who all work full time for Pratham).

After this meeting ended Baljinder and I left for Gurdaspur where we would visit more summer camps.

______________________________________________________
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Summer Camps in Ludhiana District, Punjab

2008-06-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

Today I set out with Ajay Singh, a Pratham Punjab state-support member, to visit Pratham summer camps in the rural Ludhiana II Block of Ludhiana District (states are split administratively into Districts and then Blocks).

Our goal was to visit four villages to see four summer camps. We hadn’t given the camps any advanced notice that we were coming; these were surprise visits meant to see how the camps were really operating day-to-day.

Before I talk more about the actual visits, here are some details about Pratham summer camps:

They emphasize teaching literacy (in local language), numeracy, and creating a fun atmosphere, with students learning through games and play—it is summer break…
Last about 1 month long; 2 hours a day, 6 days a week
Most take place during May or June, with a couple in July
Student assessments are done at the beginning and end of the summer camp in order to determine student abilities (and therefore what and growth (if anyone is interested in hearing more about how we assess students please just leave a comment asking).
Taught by volunteer teachers (recruited by Pratham "mobilizers"), with support by Pratham District Coordinators, Pratham Block Coordinators.

The camps we saw in Ludhiana II Block were operating out of government schools and ran from 9-11am. Most families in this area make a living as farmers or laborers. We visited four camps in Hassanpur, Bhadowal, Jhandeh, and Threeke and while each camp was unique in its own way, the most noteworthy one was in Hassanpur.

We arrived at the Hassanpur camp at 8:50am, and though it was humid, it was rather pleasant as there was a cool breeze in the air. What we found was also pleasant-- students had arrived early and had already begun learning. Ajay and I watched as the classroom filled up with 20 students ages 5-8, who read a paragraph word by word as a Pratham volunteer teacher lead them through it on the board. The classroom was well-maintained, had 2 new fully-functioning overhead fans in it, and a very sweet blackboard—a giant green apple painted on the front wall (pictures on the right).

After observing for about 15 minutes we moved next door to a Pratham-Bharti library, decorated, almost floor to ceiling, with drawings made by the students. A Pratham volunteer oversaw the classroom of 26 students each with a Pratham book in hand. The students read aloud quietly to themselves creating a wonderfully warm sound—an excited buzzing which bordered on the intensity of prayer. Ajay and I looked at each other and couldn’t help but smiling.

(Hassanpur, Pratham Library)

(Threeke, Posters on the wall)

(Threeke, Pratham class)

(Threeke, Pratham shop game)

(Bhadowal, Government multiplication tables on interior wall of school)

Side note highlight of the day:

Today I saw a sign for a place advertised as a “Canadian restaurant.”
Canadian restaurant?
I've never been to a place that serves "Canadian" cuisine. Anyone out there been to one? Or even better has anyone ever had Canadian bacon in Punjab?

Tomorrow:
To Gurdaspur, northernmost district of Punjab, which borders on Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan.

_____________________________________________________
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Project Overview

2008-06-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday afternoon I met with Pratham's North India Director, Rukmini Banerji, and Pratham's Founder, Madhav Chavan, to talk about the scope of my summer project. These were some of the most exciting hours of my last year...

Essentially they've asked me to help document Pratham's summer camps. Operating in about 18 of 26 Indian states in all parts of the country-- from Punjab, to Assam, to Tamil Nadu, to Gujarat, this will be an ambitious and enormous undertaking. In addition to trying to capture this massive movement of change as it happens, they've asked me to try to identify problems while out on my travels, in order to help improve the programs we run.

Given free reign to critically explore any program in the country as well as a mandate to make it to as many states as possible, I am looking forward to getting to capturing how Pratham's progress this summer affects individual children, families, communities, and the country.

The first stop? Off to Ludhiana, Punjab.

More soon...

P
______________________________________________________
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Safe in Delhi

2008-06-06T01:06:00.000-07:00

I safely arrived in Delhi today. I will head into the Delhi Safdarjang Enclave office soon to meet with Pratham's North India director, Dr. Rukmini Banerjee. But before I get into the details of the work I'll be doing this summer it might be good to fill some of my bio/background.

I was born and raised in Skokie, Illinois a northern suburb of Chicago and then attended Washington University in St. Louis, studying International Studies & Drama. After graduating in September 2006 I moved to Delhi to work for Pratham. I spent a year working primarily on Research/Evaluation, including number crunching for ASER 2006 and I also spent much of my focus on a pilot survey, PAHELI, commissioned by the UNDP.

After completing a very enjoyable year with Pratham in Delhi I returned to Washington University in St. Louis to work for the International and Area Studies Program. In addition to this I served as Pratham's "International Internship Coordinator" essentially acting as the liaison between Pratham and non-Indian citizens interested in working for Pratham.

Now, Pratham & Pratham USA have brought me back to India to help document and evaluate 2008 summer camps in India.

That's the short bio-- if you're interested in more, my biodata is available on: ABCDmatrimonials.

That was a joke.

Pushkar

www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

Welcome!

2008-06-03T23:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to "Every Child In School and Learning Well," this blog takes the name of Pratham's motto, which calls to do just that.

Please read along as I visit and write on a variety of Pratham summer camps being run across India from June-August. For those who don't know, Pratham is India's largest education NGO and has a wide network of programs operating throughout India (www.pratham.org/presence/default.php) which broadly fall into two categories: A) empowering and assisting local volunteers to directly teach literacy and numeracy to children (most of whom are not enrolled in a formal school) and B) a "catalytic" approach which aims to work with State/District/local government to advocate for better education policy, teaching training, etc.

More on Pratham and the summer camps soon.*

I write now from Skokie, IL, USA where I was born and raised, but will leave to Delhi to continue working with the wonderful people at Pratham. I'd love to write more about myself, but there's no time now, so I'll reveal that info slowly to keep you coming back...

Pushkar

*in case you can't wait, please visit:
www.pratham.org
www.readindia.org
www.prathamusa.org

2008-06-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

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