Provide pre-school access to 3000 kids in India

Years and Years Ago

•  Fifteen years ago KumbalgodAnganwadi 1 was a scene of depletion, functioning in adversity. The poorly maintained brick-and-tile roof was hardly sheltering. It is the kind still seen in Kumbalgod, 20 kilometres from Bangalore, off the highway to Mysore, an old roofing technique that has all but vanished with time. The anganwadi had no floor, no electricity, not a drop of water, no toilet, no prop or pillar. A dark room, half-baked. And no teaching-learning - that was unheard of.

• Lakkamma, the anganwadi helper, who seems as if she has strayed in from some ancient past, remembers a time even farther away. Twenty five years ago things may well have been from another century. She worked with sticks to light the fire, then came the kerosene stove that she coaxed into sputtering life, and now the era of gas. There she stands, staunch and motherly, over the double-burner gas stove in the small storeroom, brewing strong, milky tea with a sense of possession, the modern context heightening her rough-hewn, villager-like quality. “The anganwadi is functioning well,” she says, acknowledging its superior strengths.

An Anganwadi with Amenities

• It is Nallooramma, the anganwadi teacher here for twelve years, who presides over the amplitude. There is so much teaching-learning material that KumbalgodAnganwadi 1 could do with an additional room or two. Arranged along the sides according to Akshara’s preschool education pedagogy, they are an incentive for children.\

• Every inch of wall space is covered with stimulation, painted by a supportive Gram Panchayat. If it is a hand-painted animal story unspooling on one wall, then it is the Department of Women and Child Development’s messages for child development and community well-being on another.

• Charts jostle – the alphabets in Kannada and English, vehicles, fruits, numbers. Children’s paintings, suspended on strings, stretch diagonally across the room – a bird of orange and blue plumage, a girl in a distinctive dance pose, her skirt flaring, a fat boy enjoying an ice cream.

• There are cupboards of wood and steel, a tall rack, plastic chairs for visitors, mats for children to sit on, a solid cement floor, air and natural light. This is not all. KumbalgodAnganwadi 1 has electricity, a fan, a fully functioning toilet, water never running short, transported from the sump outside with the help of a motor, recently affixed. 

A Model Anganwadi

• The anganwadi reflects in every sense the progressive thought that prevails in Kumbalgod, a small habitat of progress and relative prosperity, close to Bangalore and yet far.

• Seventeen children, dressed in colourful exuberance, sit in the central pool of space, their attention riveted by LEGO, quite unsurpassed as play-and-learning material in anganwadis. LEGO kits are a part of Akshara’s teaching-learning package in model anganwadis.

• The anganwadi is a model anganwadi in Akshara’s preschool programme, selected because it meets all the criteria of a full-fledged preschool. For four years Akshara has groomed this centre, upgrading standards and positioning it as an exemplary anganwadi. Fifteen children from the March 2014 group secured admission in class 1 in private schools, announces Nallooramma, a professional victory she is overjoyed with.

 People Support Drives the Anganwadi

• If Nallooramma sets the pace for her anganwadi, the final word rests with the community. It is people support that has taken this anganwadi where it is today. The community is the spearhead for the change it has seen. It is a partnership, a symbiotic bond. For all that has happened between then and now, people are responsible.

• Akshara is a catalyst, invigorating Bal Vikas Samithis (BVS), the external community support structures for anganwadis ordained by government which, on paper, is a reality, seldom so in action. Akshara trained 1439 Bal Vikas Samithis, or roughly 15,547 BVS members, across 1439 anganwadis in Bangalore four years ago. It was a successful attempt at creating a community matrix for the nurture and support of anganwadis.

• Field teams visit communities like Kumbalgod at least once a month, attending parents’ meetings in anganwaids, meeting and engaging with people, forging relationships, and persuading them to do more for their preschool centres.

• Community mobilisation for anganwadis is an important component of Akshara’s preschool programme, and Kumbalgod was quick to seize the opportunity. Akshara had opened a door, and residents, aware and sentient as they are, took advantage of the openings.

A Monthly Meeting for Finding Solutions

• KumbalgodAnganwadi 1 is privileged to have a committed corps of people ready to champion its cause. The Gram Panchayat is responsive and takes on “the big things,” says Nallooramma. The toilet was constructed with funds allotted by the Panchayat.

• The Bal VikasSamithi which has 14 members, is an active support mechanism for the anganwadi. Nallooramma is a BVS member, wielding a large role. She convenes monthly BVS meetings and ensures that everyone is present when the anganwadi’s problems are raised and discussed. Solution-finding is the meeting’s agenda. Action inevitably follows afterwards. 

“For the Progress of Children”

•  Members of the ChowdammaSosaiah Group, a women’s self-help group, four of whom are in the BVS too, are keen drivers of change. With its trademark of togetherness and bonding, always an impetus for the community, the group takes decisive action on behalf of KumbalgodAnganwadi 1. The four women form a charged inner BVS circle that takes its mandate to heart. The self-help group’s office behind the anganwadi declares its mission on an unpretentious board that dangles at the entrance. “For the well-being of people. For the progress of children.” 

• Yashodha, 41, who is the BVS President and a Gram Panchayat member, lives up to this tradition. “My aim is that children should improve. I would like all of us as a community to improve,” she says, sitting in a chair in the anganwadi which a Sangha member has donated. 

“I Can Do More. I Want to”

• Yashodha is a strong-minded person, a woman of many gifted parts who conceals it behind an exterior of restraint, modesty and an almost total self-elimination. Yashodha underwent Akshara’s BVS training. It taught her to look at her role in the anganwadi in a new light. It made her intensely aware of all that she could do for uplift and amelioration.

• She is multi-skilled, utilising her assets to further the anganwadi. Communication is a flourishing instinct and she can talk to an MLA or a truck driver with equal felicity. Organising, managing and coordinating for the anganwadiis every day’s work. The anganwadi has electricity today because of her.

• She can take charge of a consignment of provisions for the anganwadi after it has closed for the day, provide a wholesome meal for the children, or teach when called upon to. Or marshal community support, as she recently did for Akshara’sMakkalaHabba, or Children’s Festival, held at the anganwadi. Yashodha contributed nearly Rs. 12,000 from her personal funds for the Habba, believing passionately that anganwadis do not often give children anything of substance and value. She goes about reversing that trend, at least in KumbalgodAnganwadi 1, and made the Habba a community event that has stayed in people’s minds.

• Yashodhacasts a look around at the children, LEGO-bound and marooned, of their own free will, in the centre, erecting towers with the coloured blocks or experimenting with them. Her granddaughter studied here. “I can do more. I want to,” she says.

 “I Want to Help Children”

• Ganganarasimha, a gracious grandmother, her hair a respectable, frizzy grey, prefers to recede into the background, but she is no less an instrument of change in Kumbalgod. The President of the ChowdammaSosaiah Group and a BVS member, she got the water connection for the anganwadi from the Taluk Panchayat. She had the fan installed, contributed the chairs, the mats.

• “Just look at these children,” she says. They thrive in this anganwadi’splenitude, motivated, discipline ingrained in them. They are clean, neatly dressed. Hygiene-conscious parents must have made the early morning effort. Children leave their slippers in a line at the entrance, careful not to make a mess. Akshara’s preschool programme is responsible for the orderly conduct, members say, but underline the energy and efforts the BVS puts in as well. 

• “I want to help children,” says Ganganarasimha. Her two sons studied here years ago and now she has her 2 ½ year old grandson, Vardhan, going through one of life’s earliest phases in the same anganwadi, a rejuvenated centre that can rival any private preschool in the area.

• Rangalakshmamma is from the BVS and also a member of the self-help group. She sits self-contained, nodding endorsement. Her children passed through this anganwadi too and her grandchildren are here now.

“We are not Afraid to Do Things”

• For these women, KumbalgodAnganwadi 1 is the stuff of memory lanes and nostalgia. They have a lot at stake here, an emotional investment. Their grandchildren will soon move on, but they rise above personal considerations to embrace the larger good of Kumbalgod. They believe this government-run anganwadi has to be an essential rite of passage for all preschool-aged children in the community, today and in the future, a life-determining choice, now that it has elevated itself as a reform-driven, learning-oriented centre.

• Nallooramma is developing into a force herself, already proving she has it in her. An array of strengths is on display – in teaching and classroom management, canvassing in the community, and in organising, the MakkalaHabba a recent example. She is proud to be a BVS member, she says, and is determined to safeguard the anganwadi’s hard-earned place in the sun. “We are not afraid to do things,” she says, with a masterly sweep of her hands.

Links:

• Know more about Akshara's pre-school programme
• Follow Akshara Foundation on Facebook