Creating child-friendly Learning Center in Nepal

Parahu - “Let’s Study”

Creating a child-friendly Learning Centre in Nepal

Project Summary: Dhanushadham lies in the southern belt of Nepal. The Musahar population in Dhanushadham is the most vulnerable and marginalized in terms of access to resources. At a learning center in Govindpur, Dhanushadham, 190 children from the Musahar community are provided informal classes with the support of 3 facilitators who belong to the same community. Our project aims to educationally empower and encourage children to build their capacities out of school and support the facilitators. 

Through GlobalGiving September Accelerator program, SAATH was able to raise a total of $ 5356 including 62 donations from 54 donors in a period of 17 days. Now that we are a permanent member of the GlobalGiving community, we wish to engage with more donors and continue our work in the Musahar community. Our current goal is to raise a total of $25000 for the learning center. 

Project Activities

Diagnostic Test for the children: To understand the learning levels of the children coming to the learning center, we will be conducting a diagnostic test for each child and cater to their needs accordingly. 

Numeracy and Literacy Classes: Numeracy and Literacy classes for the children by the facilitators will be conducted every day where the children will be supported to learn letters, words, sentences, reading, and storytelling to begin with. 

Stationery for the children: The children coming to the learning center will receive a monthly supply of stationery as motivation and encouragement. 

Facilitators Remuneration: The three facilitators will be remunerated with a basic stipend as motivation and reward for their hard work on a monthly basis. At present, we have a total of 3 facilitators. We wish to increase the pool of facilitators for the number of children is increasing with passing days.

Teacher’s Training: One of the most important aspects of the project is to provide support to the facilitators. In this process, teacher training will be periodically provided to them to support their learning and update them with skills and knowledge applicable while teaching.

Capacity-building Workshop: The facilitator will receive TOT on capacity building to work with selected groups of children in the learning center. The capacity-building workshops is aimed at improving the leadership, communication, and critical thinking skills of the children who showcase an extra zeal to learn and work towards supporting other children in the community. 

Project Update

So far, we have completed the diagnostic test for 190 children of the learning center and are currently working to engage with children in groups and exploring options to work with a large number of children at once. 

We also formally launched the project through Stationery distribution for the 190 children of the community. It is amazing to see how the 3 facilitators have been managing the total number under two classrooms on a daily basis. To support the current pool of facilitators, we also had an interview scheduled with a potential facilitator for the children. After an initial conversation, the candidate will be supporting one of our previous facilitators and after monitoring his engagement, further action will be taken.

Upcoming Activity

Teachers’ Training for the 3 facilitators of the learning center will take place mid-December; to facilitate the process we have been engaging with trainers of 2 different organizations to support us run the training

Monthly Stationery Drive will be an ongoing activity of Project Parahu whereby the children will receive supplies of stationery 

Collaboration with schools and colleges to support the learning center has been initiated for children-children support