Educate & empower 3,600 kids in Jharkhand, India

ILP continues to make great strides in this project. We are happy to share with you our accomplishments over the academic year of 2012-2013, including some we have already mentioned in the quarterly reports.

 Pre-Schools

• Due to regular interaction with the parents, door to door visits and parent counseling, attendance of 368 children in 16 pre-schools has improved from 55% to 69%
• Breakfast is provided in 8 centers regularly while lunch is provided in 14 centers. Food is prepared under hygienic conditions in 9 centers and portable drinking water is available in 13 centers through joint efforts of the NGO and Mothers committees. 
• Children in 15 pre-schools were given slates and pencils
• Mothers committees were activated in 9 pre-schools and 132 meetings with 2,417 participants were conducted.
• 20 Village Health and Sanitation committee (VHSC) capacity building training sessions were held in which 288 Mothers committee members, 161 VHSC members and 186 community members participated.
• Nukkad Nataks (Street plays) were held in 20 villages to increase awareness of people about importance of education especially  for girls 3 to 16 years, the role of parents and  community in education, the role of children in addressing issues concerning them and community. As a result of these street plays, there was considerable increase in the attendance of children in pre-schools and schools and the community has begun actively participating in issues related to education.

Schools

•  In the past year out of 1952 students enrolled in 18 schools, 1192 students are regularly attending the classes. The average attendance increased from 53% to 61%. This has been achieved by multi-pronged efforts including sensitizing parents to the ill effects of keeping their children at home to support domestic work, training teachers to be patient and avoid any type of corporal punishment.
• 73 children have been re-enrolled in the past year, leading to a 55% (205 /317) re-enrollment in the past 2 years. In some villages, this includes a 100% re-enrollment.
•  Two learning level assessment tests (LLAs) were conducted in 20 schools. But only 20 % student performed well and others were below average highlighting the need for not only improving the enrollment in schools but also quality of education.
• 7 para-teachers were provided to improve teacher-student ratio in those schools. In these 7-villlages there was a 66% re-enrollment compared to 46% re-enrollment in other villages, mostly due to active participation of the para-teachers in engaging parents, children and the community.
• Teaching materials were given to 18 schools
• In 18 schools Child Rights Club meetings (Bal Sansad) were conducted almost every month. In these meetings children discussed about child rights, teacher attendance, mid-day meal and other issues concerning their schools,
•  Regular village community meetings were conducted with 25-30 participants on an average. Importance of sending children to schools regularly, exempting kids from household chores, interaction with the teachers enquiring progress of their children have been stressed in these meetings. ILP and Chetna Vikas teams continued to advocate that the responsibility of educating the next generation must be a community owned process.
• In 8 schools, School monitoring committees (SMCs) were meeting regularly. In other schools, meetings were facilitated by ILP/Partner team members. On an average 8-10 members attended the meetings.

ILP strongly believes that sustained change can be brought in only when the community is educated, energized and empowered to take the responsibility of their schools. We realize that this process does not happen overnight, but we are committed to bringing about this change over a period of a few years. We are very thankful to our Global Giving donors who believe in this philosophy and are continuing to support us. THANK YOU!