By Neeraja Joshi | Secretary
GLOBALGIVING PROJECT REPORT
Submitted on October 20, 2016
Our NGO school, Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS), is a Hindi medium primary school from Kindergarten till Class 8. The children come from economically weak sections of the society, and they are mostly first generation learners. The families are rural – either farmers or daily wage earners. The women here form the most vulnerable sections of the rural mountain communities, married early they proceed into a life of frequent pregnancies and child births, are subject to a host of social and nutritional prejudices during menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and lactation. They continue to have a relentless back-breaking schedule of looking after their families, home, and farms including 4-5 hours of manual labor- head loading water, fodder, firewood, and dry leaf litter. The annual income for these families ranges from as low as Rs 12,000/- to the highest being about 1 Lakh per annum.
Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS) school survives mainly on private donations. We presently have 157 students (78 girls and 79 boys) enrolled from 14 of the remotest villages of the mountain state of Uttarakhand in India. ABS has come a long way over the past 2 decades and we try our best to strike the right balance between academics, sports, cultural and co-curricular activities leading to the 'holistic development of children in a joyful learning environment'!
Our students were kept busy all the summer months with lots of co-curricular activities, art and subject workshops, and were provided an intellectually stimulating environment to grow, learn and think!
These past few months we worked intensively with our 16 school teachers to provide them with training in the form of capacity building workshops. We investment in teaching-learning methodologies and professional development workshops so we can provide high quality education. Although there is a government school in almost every village in the mountains, the quality of the education provided gives little chance for improved livelihood options. Rote learning and standard examinations do not give children the space to develop critical thinking skills and lead to a high dropout rate.
Shared below is a feedback we received from our school teachers on the progress made by the ABS students.
Focused remedial work with lagging behind learners, was a common achievement experienced by most.
Positive behavioral changes in learners – like being honest about what they understood and what they struggled to understand.
Improvement was seen in children’s ability to express and respond.
Learning engagement through the use of project work.
In the lower classes, changes were observed in children’s everyday behavior, the way they dressed, their sitting posture and a positive transformation noticed in their overall attitude towards school and learning.
Development of reading fluency was another significant area where many teachers felt a sense of accomplishment.
Some of the key challenge areas where they coped with are shared below:
Learners
Internal
External
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