Ahmedabad - 12th Jan 2010

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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Nandurbar - 10th Jan 2010

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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Nandurbar - 9th Jan 2010

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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Aurangabad - 8th Jan 2010

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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Aurangabad - 7th Jan 2010

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

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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Fieldwork around Ludhiana

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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