Education for 100 street children in India

As the world is battling the effects of the COVID19 pandemic, Ashraya continues to undertake mitigation response within our communities, to alleviate the impact of the virus which is still rapidly spreading. The high density of population and sharing community utilities like public toilets and water has made it harder to control transmission within local households. As a safety measure, Ashraya continues to conduct all education activities remotely and simultaneously support the community through on ground health and nutrition initiatives. The Ashraya families have been receiving food ration supplies and health-hygiene kits every fortnight on need basis through the assistance of staff, with necessary precautions and permissions. This included a sanitary napkin distribution for all the girls and women in the Ashraya communities in June. We will continue to support the families with food ration and medical facilities till this health crisis persists. 

In the past three months, the Ashraya team has brainstormed and worked towards grasping the technicalities of remote education and concurrently improving learning outcomes of children. Since by now, schools have virtually reopened and are also delving into online classes, the teaching staff have segregated children into groups for Mathematics and English and have been giving all the students at least 3 hours’ worth of worksheets for constructive engagement. Since the academic year at Ashraya has commenced in June, we have organized a session with the community parents on highlights of the previous academic year and to elaborate on the standard guidelines for the impending academic year. We will be continuing with remote education indefinitely till the pandemic blows over and have shared an e-learning timetable for the students which were drawn out carefully considering sibling timetables, teacher availability timings and school online classes timings. One of our major challenges in this process was a lack of access of digital devices within the community due to the dire financial straits of some of the families. Ashraya conducted a donation campaign for the same for old and/or unused phones or tablets and managed to acquire devices for seven families in the process.  We also conducted a rigorous and comprehensive teacher training for Ashraya staff in the month of June which included experts from various fields taking online sessions and webinars on creative learning methods to incorporate during lesson plan conception. This included a focus on curriculum, goal setting, inclusive education and innovative teaching aids for students to make learning effectual in online classrooms. A highlight during this is was a peer learning session by our in house counselling team on topics like Understanding ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), classroom strategies and graphic organizers. 

One of our exciting new endeavours are weekly spoken word poetry sessions conducted for 31 children of various ages, by Bullock Cart Poetry, an organization we have partnered with. The children have been embracing their artistic capabilities and are coming up with some captivating lines! One of our favourite poems which has been penned by one of our budding poets is attached within. Needless to say the children are thoroughly enjoying these weekly sessions as it gives them an outlet to creatively express their emotions and thoughts. We hope to see a lot more verses from our talented children in the coming weeks!