Back to School - 300 Children in India

Don Bosco veedu society has been supporting children in education since years. We recently identified three children who were finding it difficult for attending online classes as well as coaching classes for entrance examination due to lack of smart phones which are the major access for online education platform since the pandemic. The children were identified through one of our project titled IMPACT which aims in providing free entrance coaching for the children who aim for entrance examination for their higher studies and are not able to afford going for advanced entrance coaching classes.

These children are very brilliant in studies and has acquired excellent scores in their annual examinations. They were constantly missing out the sessions through online since they joined the coaching classes. We conducted a home visit for the children who were missing out sessions and interacted with them. The reason for them for not attending was they did not have any smart phones for them to attend the sessions conducted. They were using the smart phones of their father or mother or some neighbour for the classes and mostly they face the lack of availability during the scheduled time of sessions.

Don Bosco Veedu Society with the help of GlobalGiving donors as well as local sponsors was able to mobilise the fund for buying them three smart phones each so that they can attend every educative session without any delay. Each smart phones cost around 8000 INR.

Since the pandemic has affected every sectors across our country, the educational institutions are shut down as part of precautionary measures for fighting COVID 19. The government has introduced online education where the children can receive education through mass medias from their own homes. This can be made practical only when the children has access to the infra structures through which online sources can be accessed such as smart television and internet connections.

The problem emerged when the innovative way of providing education was implemented across Kerala. There were exemption cases where the children couldn’t access to the mass media as they were not able to afford buying smart televisions in their home.  Thus poverty became a major factor in providing the children with quality education.  Don Bosco Veedu society with the help of GlobalGiving has donated 12 smart televisions for the children who lack access to the technologies. The televisions were provided as a step to prevent drop outs with the reason of lack of technologies.

We collaborated with an American Malayalee group called “Stand with Kerala” and identified 12 children who are in need of smart television for pursuing their education during this pandemic period. We organised the event in the presence of Hon’ble minister Shri.  Kadakampalli Surendran ( Ministster of tourism and devaswom, Government of Kerala). The parents of the children were called upon and the televisions were handed over to them.The televisons were distributed and the feedback was collected from the beneficiaries. The whole event was documented and uploaded in You tube. The link is provided below.

https://youtu.be/u9K_TI2c1j0