Empower through Education for Poverty Eradication

Greetings from Team Shaishav & Adhar

We wish to update about the activities that took place during last quarter. During the quarter door to door survey work was done and interaction with children begun.

In the first week of June 2015, our senior team visited the villages and initiated dialogues with the local people, Education officials, Gram Panchayat, School Principals and Aanganwadi staff to overview the current situation prevails in respect of Education and problems face by the children and their parents. They also set up for the local staff appointments to begin the survey work in the area. Later, they took interviews and appointed the staff. 4 staff members were appointed and they were given a brief training on how to begin the survey work.

We have send one of our experienced staff member to join the new team members to guide them about the process of doing the survey work and way to connect people. This has definitely helped new team members to undertake the survey work efficiently, effectively and accurately. The work begun from 15^th June in 4 villages i.e. Rawalikheda, Junapani, Devaliya & Kotdakhurd. These villages are very remotely located in the periphery of about 20 km from main city of Dahod. The local transport facility is very poor and it takes hours to reach this villages. These are hilly areas and reaching from one village to another was found to be a challenge.

It is experienced by the team that initially the village people were hesitant to answer the questions put by the team member, but as the things progressed and as they understood the purpose of this survey, they became more responsive.

• During this survey, broadly it was found that :
• In all the area the local primary schools were more than 1.5 to 3 kilometers away from the population.
• Secondary schools were 5 to 7 kilometers far.
• The lack of proper transport facilities to reach the schools resulted in parents spending to drop their kids to school. This expenditure demoralized the parents.
• It was found that people were quite aware about needs and importance of education, but due to poor economic condition and for the reasons mentioned above they were getting discouraged.
• Most villagers who were staying in villages were employed as masonry, excavator, and agriculture labor or construction workers.
• In most houses, quite a few member would migrate to the big cities in search of employment along with their families and the older people of the family were taking care of the house.
• Most villagers were involved in some or the other kind of addiction of tobacco and alcohol.
• Most villagers were ignorant about their eligibility of the welfare policies provided by the Govt.

The team also met and listed down names of Teachers, SMC (School Management Committee), Number of students enrolled in each schools at these villages. Numbering work of each houses of village ‘Devaliya’ completed. Numbering houses in the rest of the villages is expected to be completed soon. The team has done a survey work of adults of each houses in Devaliya village, engaged in different labor activities, to help those obtaining U Win Cards. They helped villagers in filling application form for obtaining this card. This card will enable these villagers for claiming various welfare schemes offered by Government.

On 20^th July, a balmela was organized at a primary school in Kotdakhurd Village. Total 49 children (24 boys & 25 Girls) participated. On 21^st another balmela was organized in Rawalikheda primary school in morning and Junapani primary school during afternoon. Total 125 children (65 boys & 60 girls) participated in Rawalikheda and total 48 children (28 boys & 20 girls) participated in Junapani. The balmelas covered activities such as paper crafts, drawing, friendship games and simple scientific experiments games. On 15^th August, a balmela was organized in Rawalikheda with 170 community children on the theme of Independence. After flag hosting, children sang patriotic songs, children songs and antakshari. 30 parents also took part in the occasion.   

Our ultimate aim is to change life of the people and children in particular from these villages soon by engaging with them through activities. We strive to ensure that all the children from these villages achieve the basic rights to free and compulsory education, create a child centered environment and provide opportunities where children and youths can realize their basic rights.  

Thanking You…