Wings of Doon - An After School Support Program

Aasraa aims to empower the most vulnerable children in Dehradun to help shape their lives and give them a meaningful existence. These children have always been treated like liabilities, we hope to help them become assets, for themselves and for the society. We bring them in, with the help of our Outreach team and help them achieve basic literacy through our Street Smart centers. With dedicated help from our teachers and relentless hard work from the children, we help them mainstream into regular schools.

Our children come from some of the most poverty ridden areas of the city which makes it hard for them to have an environment at home that is conducive to learning. They live in cramped quarters with no electricity or a desk. They lack adult guidance for academics, at home. All this essentially leads to poor understanding of concepts which take a toll on their performance in classrooms. That’s where Aasraa’s program Wings comes in. We give them teachers, proper nutrition, love and encouragement to learn to their heart’s content. With the right environment, a child can thrive and that’s what we aspire to provide these children with.

The most exciting among the recent developments at Aasraa is the triumvirate partnership between Aasraa Trust, The Education Alliance and the Government of Uttarakhand. This gives us the opportunity to convert these under-performing government schools in centers of quality education. This project, School Quality Enhancement Program(SQEP) has helped us enhance the quality of education for the students already enrolled in these schools, as well as the out of school children that Aasraa have mainstreamed to them. The six government schools that come under this particular project are all running our program Wings after the school hours. With over 700 students enrolled under the wings program in these schools, -- have been mainstreamed from Aasraa. We are brimming with pride for our students who are showing constant improvement every day.

Wings program is mandatory for all mainstreamed slum and street children to attend, so we at Aasraa can make sure that they don’t lose track of their progress with their curriculum. This block of time after school provides them with guidance and support for homework and conceptual understanding.

With the amalgamation of technology with traditional forms of learning, we aim to improve computer literacy. The children are eager to use android tablets and computers in our Computer Aided Learning(CAL) classes, that we have been able to provide them for the classes because of our generous donors.

Annual examinations are just around the corner. Every student begins to stress out at this time of the year. Course completion and multiple revisions become the utmost priorities. Aasraa children are no different than others. They also reel under the pressure of examination, especially the board class papers.

Every year, we see how our children struggle to cope with the fast-paced learning environment of regular schools. Promoting them to a higher class is not our only objective; we want our children to have a clear understanding of the subject matter. We want to see them growing into confident individuals who dare to dream and are determined to reach greater heights in life.

This is where our after school support program “Wings of Doon” has played a crucial role. The remedial classes have done wonders for our children by adding immense value to their learning abilities. During examinations, these classes help us to reduce the stress that hover around our children’s minds. The education team at Aasraa prepares them to write their papers with full concentration and commitment.

Students are supported to-

• Make a timetable and allocate sufficient time for each subject
• Start early revisions so that they can grasp the difficult topics well in time
• Use flow charts for better retention of concepts
• Refer to previous years’ question papers for practice

We also counsel and encourage them to stay positive. It is important that they believe in themselves and their potential to perform well in exams.

To keep our students’ passing percentage high, Aasraa has recently introduced the concept of “Rising Stars”. We have created separate sections for students who are lagging behind and need extra attention. Counselling, guidance and motivational talks are the main pillars of this concept. Teachers dedicate special time and efforts to improve the performance of our Rising Stars. The increasing number of students successfully passing the exams every year are portraying our success story.

This year, 1,015 Aasraa students will appear for their annual examination. Thirty and twelve students will write their 10^th and 12^th board exams respectively.  

We really appreciate your generosity in supporting Aasraa and her children. Your unwavering support strengthens our capacity to hand-hold more marginalized street and slum students.