By Vama Rajpal | Fundraising Manager
CHILD FRIENDLY SPACES
SAATH is a non-government organization registered as a Public Charitable Trust in Gujarat, India. In Gujarati the word SAATH means, “Together, Co-operation, a Collective or Support.” SAATH’s one-stop, integrated services reach over 4,00,000 individuals in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Since 1989, SAATH has facilitated participatory process that improves the quality of life for the urban and rural poor. SAATH caters to multiple needs of the poor by providing them with one-stop centres, through which they have access to services such as health, education, employment, micro finance and affordable housing. SAATH engages institutions, corporate and individuals throughout the world as partners and supporters for the integrated development of India.
SAATH designed Child-Friendly Spaces- a unique, 4-hour informal education course with an aim to later enrol the child labourers, children of construction labourers in formal education. With a steady influx of migrating families to urban settlements and poor quality of education, creating alternative education spaces for quality education has become important.
The main and objective of this programme is to reach the child labourers and children of labourers and help them gain formal education eventually and there after making them skilled and self-sufficient. Children from the slums, child labourers as well as children of labourers on construction sites all require a strong base in education and access to quality education. Dropouts from school need to be continuously counselled and encouraged to go back to school. The education programs designed at Saath recognize this need and aims to bridge this gap.
Currently, there are 8 Child Friendly Space (CFS) centres; 3 in the slums of Ahmedabad and 7 on construction sites. Through our CFS centres, we have enrolled more than 3,035 child labourers and children of labourers in our CFS classes.
QUARTERLY STATUS OF CFS (January - March, 2015)
For overall development we conducted various learning activities for their physical and mental development and special care is taken on their nutrition and hygiene. Currently we have 5 CFS classes at construction sites and 3 in slums.
We inaugurated one new center in this quarter at construction site. We closed down one at the construction site as the project got over.
Two of our supporters celebrated their kids’ birthday with our CFS children. One of them provided one day lunch to all the children and the other one with snacks and drawing kit.
We had a volunteer Mr. Chetan Varsani from London who spent couple of hours every day for two months at Rajyesh Reevanta center. He taught English alphabets and different body parts in English. Also he introduced them to some of the fairy tales. Children were very sad when he went back.
Saath in collaboration with aProCh Foundation conducts various arts, crafts, and storytelling activities with CFS children on every 4th Sunday of the month at different parks in Ahmedabad. This quarter we had conducted activities at Prahladnagar Garden, Law Garden and Parimal Garden. Here children interacts with other school kids and learn a lot with them.
School Kits were distributed to the new enrollments in all the classes and at the new centers.
There is an outbreak of Swineflu in Gujarat. Children and their families at the centers were given masks and were taught precautionary steps to protect themselves from swineflu.(pic in whatsapp group)
We have divided the children at the centers in three groups according to their age:
Group A: Children who very young, prayers, poems and basic body parts are taught here
Group B: Children are taught Alphabets and Numbers in English and Gujarati
Group C: Children are taught how to write and also they learn addition, subtraction, multiplication.
Given below is the brief of activities at each individual centre:
At this center the kids continue learning different letters in Gujarati and English. They learnt writing numbers from 50-100. They learnt new nursery rhymes and songs. Children were taught about craft and painting. They have learned new techniques of drawing.
Different activities were done with children according to their age groups. The children were taught English – Gujarati alphabets, names of fruits, animals, birds, colours and they learned about various shapes. Craft activities were also done with the children and they were taught to make various things out of paper and colouring them. They have been taught to make toys from waste material. They have also taught about glass painting and learned different colours names
Vejalpur:
During the 3 month period the children were taught English and Gujarati alphabets, names of vegetables and fruits, they learnt numbers from 1-100, stories were told, sang songs, learnt how to write simple words and draw basic shapes. Few out-door exercise sessions were done for the physical development.
SW Park – Naroda:
Here children learned simple words, reading and writing the alphabets and small words in English. In Maths the children learned numbers from 1 to 20. The children learned about colours, learned from charts, played various interactive learning games and children songs.
SW Park – Vasna:
At this center, younger kids were taught alphabets in two languages English and Gujarati, the older kids were taught to read and write the alphabets. In Maths, kids learned basic examples of addition. Apart from these children were taught basic disciplinary manners. They were taught general knowledge. Mythological stories were narrated.
Umang – Narol:
In this center children were taught to write numbers 1-50 in English and 1-100 in Gujarati. Songs in Gujarati were taught. We had a volunteer who taught these kids different body parts in English language and few songs and poems in English. They also had regular sports activities at this center. Children also learnt basic manners. They learnt how to greet and meet in English.
Rajyesh Revanta:
In the class the children were taught prayer songs, reading alphabets (English and Gujarati) and reading from 1 to 100 numbers. With the help of interactive games the children were taught about how to give their introduction, identify various colours and counting digits. Children were taught season names and importance of cleanliness.
Aakruti Aangan - Lamba:
This is the new center that was inaugurated in this quarter. Parents were invited so that they can come and see what activities are conducted here. First month only went in registrations, Children played with toys and few games were played every day so that children get comfortable with teachers. Second month songs and poems were taught.
CHALLENGES
Child Friendly Spaces- Status in March 15
Sr. No. Name of the Centre Boy Girl Total
1 Fatehwadi 12 21 33
2 Ram rahim no tekro 16 16 32
3 Vejalpur 16 18 34
4 Naroda- Swaminarayan park 26 21 47
5 Shahwadi- Swaminarayan park 21 15 36
6 Narol 17 15 32
7 Rajyash Revanta – Vasana 30 30 60
8 Aakruti Aangan 40 22 62
Total 178 158 336
Child Friendly Spaces (January 15 - March 15)
Sr. No. Name of the Centre Newly Enrolled Children Children enrolled to School
Jan.15 Feb.15 Mar.15 Total Jan.15 Feb.15 Mar.15 Total
1 Fatehwadi 3 0 2 5 2 0 0 2
2 Ram rahim no tekro 5 7 0 12 0 0 0 0
3 Vejalpur 3 0 1 4 0 0 0 0
4 Naroda- Swaminaraya
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