Educating the Girls of The Indian Thar Desert

“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave — to embrace the strength within themselves and realise their full potential.”

 – Malala Yousafzai                                                                             

BOARDING HOMES

DECEMBER:

This month (December) was full of fun, happiness, and mindful study. The half-yearly exam for girls has started. Girls were suffering from cough and cold and were taken to the hospital. After getting the medicine, they were feeling better. The girls at the boarding house celebrated Human Rights Day by telling its significance. During this month we had two girls who were represented at the state level championship at Jhunjhunu in Self-defence. They also had certain workshops, like “International Day of People with disabilities”. In this, they were taught that people with disabilities face a lot of challenges in their daily lives,  and it is necessary to be kind and helpful sometimes. And we celebrated “Orange Day”. The global 16 days campaign is an international campaign to challenge violence against women and girls. After exams, from the 19th the girls had their winter vacations, so girls went to their villages with smiles and excitement for the new year.

 JANUARY: 

  In the month of January, with happiness and enthusiasm as the boarding home opened after the winter break, the girls came back to their respective boarding homes and all the girls sat together to organize their daily chores in order to efficiently and fairly help each other and manage everything. During that month, the girls had parents and teachers meeting at school to get the results of half-yearly exams and all the girls got very good marks. The girls from Laadli boarding home went to Hanuman temple to enjoy the lunch arranged by the trust and celebrated Republic day by singing and dancing. And one of the Girl from the Abhayasthali boarding home left the boarding home as she wanted to help her family by opening a beauty-parlour in her village. There were 4 workshops that were conducted this month, the first one on the topic of national youth day, the second on the behaviour of animals, the third on teaching the importance of education on international education day, and fourth on the history of Indian cuisine.

 FEBRUARY:

This month was full of festivals, happiness, and cultural activities. During this time, some of the girls from Laadli boarding home were engaged in the practice of dance and drama for the Annual Day celebration which was held on 8th February 2023. Later, they went back to their studies for their Third Formative Assessment Exam, and this boarding home also had many visitors visiting the hostel and had lunch with girls and also taught them for a day for their exams and some quality time with girls. At the Abhayasthali boarding home, all the girls went to Mandore with the French guests and then the girls also celebrated Mahashivratri with volunteer guests. There was one girl from this boarding home who participated in the Miss K.N. competition. At the Sheerani boarding home there was one visitor from Germany who visited the boarding home and discussed world affairs, general knowledge, and girls’ progress. During this month, they had a workshop on the topic of social justice.

Empowerment Centers (ECs)

On average, in all the ECs, the participants were taught 4 of the in Hindi vowel signs (e, ee, u, uh) and some fitting words. The students who know these topics start with the spelling of wild, aquatic, and pet animal names, bird names, vegetable names and the 7 days of the week. The participants of ECs also learned about English fruit and vegetable names as well as the 5 seasons of indie and the 12 months of the year. As soon as this was done, we continued with new topics, like vowels and consonants, living and non-living things and the use of a/an. In the maths subject, we revised the basics like the counting of numbers from 100 to 300, wrote and learnt even and odd numbers, back counting: 50 to 0, adding fractions. We taught subtraction, multiplication, and division of higher numbers as new topics. There were some workshops done based on faces with disabilities facing a lot of challenges in their daily lives. We wanted the women to know about these challenges and that it is necessary to be helpful sometimes. Second, it was a way to write about your own life and its stories and memories and be written in different types. For example, the standard-spiritual autobiographies, Memoirs and Autofiction. Third was energy conversation. It is important for our journey to stop climate change and to save our planet. Fourth was that Frauds in India are not unusual and come in different ways and with different goals. It is important for women to know how these frauds try to steal money and personal pieces of information, and what they have to take care of.

In sewing, participants were taught different kinds of stitching styles: 2 Types of baby frock stitching es 5 types of embroidery as well which included, (magic)chain-, seitan-, Rumania-, and buttonhole stich. The work with the sewing machine was done with the way to sew simple Kurtas and salwers, including the body measurements and the right cutting of the fabric.
All these topics were well done by the students and easy to understand.They learned the fish bone stitch, magic stitch, the cross stitch, and the art of putting thread in machine for sewing purpose. At first participants were taught the cuts with newspaper then they were made to practice the cuts for 2-3 day. After that participants were provided the cloth to undertake the same.

Primary Education Centers (PEC)

During these 3 months ,the participants of primary education centres were taught the alphabet as well as 2, 3 and 4 letter words. I taught the reading and writing of colour names, body parts and weekly names, as well as recognizing words by pictures and the students had to fill through gaps to complete the words. A to Z alphabet in oral and written form, write the missing letter, identify the letters in written and oral form. Some of them are letters with the capital letters and small letters and others are learning the spelling of the words that are associated with the Alphabet. In the Hindi subject, we revised the Hindi alphabet with reference pictures and matching words. They learned 2 and 3 letter words without any vowel signs.  The new students learned the Hindi alphabets A to Aha. I also taught them about flowers and colour names with the help of a picture dictionary. The students in maths subject were taught to do a lot of revision work, like the counting from 1-100 and the tables from 2 to 6 because of some new students. The students that did these tasks well continued with the tables from 7-10. They practised orally every day and started counting English up to fifty, and also  the spelling of numbers from 1 to 30 in oral and written form, carryover of addition and subtraction, and tables from 2 to 5.

Thanks for your continous support.