Transform lives of 85 child laborers in India

Most Respected Donors,

Greetings to you from HEARDS!

Firstly let me thank a lot for your valuable financial support towards this project.   There is a significant difference happened in the life of those children who are enrolled in our rehabilitation centers.  With these efforts we still continued the rehabilitation centers activities in a more innovative and intensive way.  We have successfully completed the second year by improving the level of educational standards, their habits and extra curriculum activities.  All these progress among the children has happened because of the continuous valuable support from donors like you.

Teachers’ Meeting

Monthly meeting of the teachers was held on 5^th of every month in the office of HEARDS at Chittoor. All the teachers of both the centers attended the meet. The work done in the previous month by each teacher was reviewed. The teachers explained what they proposed to do in their respective classes in the future months. It was found that the level of progress in all classes was satisfactory. It was found that 15 children from both the centers have lagged behind in Arithmetic’s and English language learning. The teachers explained the reason behind the cause as they were been absent for a couple of weeks due to illness.

The teachers of these classes on their own offered to work for extra hours to bring up the children who are lagging behind the level of the class standards. The project coordinator also assisted his help to enlist the children by way of special methods to bring the children up to the desired level. The children evaluation report were read at the meeting and discussed in detail. The reports of the better performing teachers provided clues to the other teachers about the ways of improving their output.  It has also been decided to conduct the exams for the children by mid of April this year.

Parent’s Meetings

Meetings of the parents were held at all the centers to discuss the status of education and children, the concept of development only through education, protection of child rights through education etc. The attendance of the parents was with an average of more than 90% in these meetings. Accordingly three meetings were held initially from January to March. All the parents felt happy regarding the facilities provided to the children by the rehabilitation center.  The parents expressed their deep sense of gratitude for the kind support by the donor agency.  We have also discussed about the health and hygiene of the children.  The teachers shared the status of the children’s health and also requested parents to focus towards the hygiene aspect of the children. It has also been discussed about the children rights through education.  Our great advantage of these meetings is that the preponderance of women who are mothers of our children.  However, the parents were also happy because of initiating some income generation activity by HEARDS to the mothers of the children.

Community Awareness

Preparatory meetings were held at each center by me and the coordinator to convince the     parents and other members of the community about the need to publicly stress the demands. In some cases the coordinator visited the localities more than once. Interaction, with teachers and the children of the classes took place, especially on the topic.  The visits in the community help the team to get know the children who have not gone to school and other issues with regard to health.  Leaflets were distributed and posters were affixed in various places to provide awareness to the public.

Computer Training for Children

There was an additional component for the project during the month of March.  Four Computers were purchased, two for each center along with the computer table and chairs.  The children were started to give training on computers and all the children were very much happy to learn computers. We have a teacher who has undergone two months training on computer operation, words, excel, power point, drawings and painting and other general function of computer. At present this teacher were teaching basics of computers to the children. This programme has created more enthusiasm among children to learn more in education and also in computers.  I assure you that this programme will help the children to be a computer literate and they can able to perform basic operations in computers before leaving this rehabilitation center.

Conclusion  

There seems to be wide community support for such arrangements made by HEARDS through the support from donors like you, which normally undertaken after taking the parents of the children enrolled in special schools into close confidence.  Our Project was conceived to meet the needs of first generation students, particularly those belonging to deprived communities. We have been successful in giving those children what they require most of all, namely, a sense of belonging and the ability to socialise and adjust to the environment of the school.  HEARDS look forward to have more opportunities to work for the rehabilitation of child laborers in order to have a better society in future.