'Holistic Development'for 300 Poor Kids in India

Dear donors,

Greetings from IDEA!

Holistic development encompasses development of intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative and spiritual potentials of the child. We try to touch some of those aspects of development by creating various opportunities for the children in our projects. Exposure visit was one such effort.

Science Day: 28^th February is celebrated as National Science Day in India to mark the discovery of the Raman Effect  by Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman. Students of the schools and colleges demonstrate various science projects as well as national and state science institutions demonstrate their research. This time we selected children from far off places and took them on a science ride in IUCAA. IUCAA is the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and is housed in University of Pune. It is one of the best institutions in the country for pure science and it opens its door for public only on science day as part of science popularization program. So we did not lose the opportunity. 21 children got to see Science Toys Demonstrations, Poster Presentations, screening of scientific films, Scientific Models and models exhibition. They were very happy to see the renowned institute. The interesting part of such events is to get an opportunity to interact with scientists through question and answer sessions. They got to know the ongoing research and contemporary work in the institute in a simplified language.

Enhancing English class: Most of the children in Lamanvasti and Shevkar vasti are from Marathi medium schools or lower English medium schools. They lack skills in English language mainly in reading and writing. Majority of them find difficulties in comprehension. There was a constant demand from these children to send a teacher for filling the gap. And we were fortunate to have about 4 post graduate students to teach the same. In Shevkar vasti, the class was conducted in an open terrace due to lack of space in the community. In Lamanvasti, we used a local temple for the class. The class continued for two months. 24 students in Shevkar vasti and 20 students in Lamanvasti were regular for this class. Within a span of two months, following topics were covered depending upon children’s age and need: alphabets, pronunciation, vowels, essay writing, sentence construction, sentence correction, grammar, punctuation, noun, verbs, adverbs, direct and indirect speech, adjectives, active voice and passive voice, leaflet writing, report writing, paragraph writing, degree of comparison, making newspaper advertisement and letter writing.

Challenges faced: Children’s pronunciation is influenced by their mother tongue. Practice is the only remedy to overcome this difficulty and we plan to concentrate on the same in the next phase. All these children are from a different age group which made it difficult to plan the study session. We had to make small groups for teaching sessions relevant to their age group.

Feedback from Divya who conducted a class in Lamanvasti:

“The knowledge that we gain throughout our lives serves a purpose when you give it to someone else and especially those who are deprived of it. It was an amazing experience teaching the kids of Lamanwasti Spoken English. These children are bright minded and if properly mentored, can achieve heights in their professional life. I thank IDEA for giving me this opportunity of interacting with these little angels and making me more socially aware. I would be happy to help these kids when and if back to Pune.”

Children and their parents were thankful for sending a resource person to far off places like Lamanvasti. They actually planned a send off for the teachers on the last day and surprised them with a gift as well. What you give comes back to you! Thank you donors for supporting our cause. We look forward to your generous support so that we can continue with our mission.