Project JAAGRITI Updates- June 2009

Apart from the already running elementary education classes, following are the updates-

1. Theater and Dance Classes- Regular theater and dance classes were held for 2-3 hours every day at 7 am in the morning. Abhishek taught the children a 15 min play cum dance, which was a step forward towards development of theater and dance skills in the children.

2. Theater and Dance Show- The RBS event was canceled but we did not wish to upset the children with this news. So we organised our own show on 14th June 2009, where children showcased the play and dance they had learned in the classes. We also had volunteer interaction and a prize distribution ceremony. Audience included volunteers, their friends, parents etc.

3. Health Checkup- Dr. Pooja, from Janakpuri (New Delhi), had conducted a detailed health check up of the children and came out with a number of observations such as protein deficiency in the children, worms, weakness etc. We have shared the details with the parents of the children as well as all the volunteers. Medicines have been provided by Dr. Pooja for the children and we look forward to improving the health of the Children in the next 3 months. We plan to start providing regular nutrition support to the children at the classes and would be having a second health check up after 3 months to analyse the progress and improvement made in the health of the children.

4. Computer Literacy- Project Jaagriti has received 2 old computers for setting up of computer classes. We have started formulating the study module which is to be taught to the Children and look forward to start the computer classes in the next 2 months.

Volunteers- Anchit, Abhishek, Kshitij, Vivek, Dr. Pooja, Debashish, Sukriti, Richa, Paulaumi, Ruchika, Siddharth, Pallavi.

Anchit Goel
Founder and Coordinator
Project Jaagriti
Mobile: +91-9818115226

Jaagriti Updates

This is just for reference of everyone, about the various activities which are happening at project JAAGRITI.

Regular Activities

1. Education Program (Classes are held 6-7 days a week and 2 hours each day. A teacher has been appointed for the same).

2. Theatre and Dance Classes (Taken up by Abhishek, 5 days a week and 2 hours each day )

Others

1. Drawing and Movie Screening Sessions.
2. Heath awareness camps.
3. Regular Volunteer Interaction and Meets.

Proposed Activities

1. Picnic to Science Museum (June)
2. Computer Literacy Classes (A computer has been received from a donor for the same)
3. Livelihood Generation Program for the mothers of the children.

We look forward for your comments/suggestions and feedback about our work. Do remember to sign our GUEST BOOK. :)

Thanks
Anchit

UPDATES: WEEK 8 & 9

Hi

These two weeks have been really good for the children as they are now receiving regular dose of education and are very happy with the classes. The parents of the children have also started showing support and some of the parents even got stationary for their children.

A syllabus has also been set for the children which includes the following for the next 1-2 months:

English:
1. A-Z (Speaking, Writing, Recognition)
2. Small a-z (Writing and Understanding)
3. Simple words like Apple, Boy, Cat, Dog etc.

Maths:
1. Counting 1-20 in Hindi (Speaking, Writing, Recognition)
2. Counting 1-10 in English (Speaking, Writing, Recognition)
3. Counting one to ten in words (Writing, Recognition)

Hindi:
1. Hindi Alphabets (Speaking, Writing and Recognition)

Others Teachings:
1. Directions (Left, Right, Up and Down)
2. Weekdays (Mon-Sun)
3. How to wish people ? (Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening, Good Night, Thank You and Sorry)

The teacher has been specially instructed to stick to this syllabus and the focus is not on making the children mug the syllabus but understand and relate to it.

The Attendance of the children has been good. Apart from a few absentees, around 25-28 children are coming regularly for the classes.

The process of getting 4 children admitted in school is in progress and we are hopeful of achieving this target.

Volunteer: Anchit, Arvind (Involved in Fund Raising)

Many potential volunteers are having their exams and might join up in the coming weeks.

Thanks

UPDATES: WEEK 6

Don't have much to tell about for this week as we are still in the process of trying to get things in order. Also Abhishek is busy with his final exams prep and I was busy with the AID Delhi ORM.

But there has been some progress on the FULL TIME SETUP side. We and the full-timer had an interaction with the children on Saturday. We introduced their new regular teacher to them and he will be starting with the classes from Monday.

We are yet to get a fixed location/room for the classes. But I don't want that to be a constraint in starting the classes for the children so currently we will be starting with open air classes and will be trying our best to move to a room asap.

We also met Pragati Public School teacher who is handling the classes for the poor children. She is interested in our initiative and wants to collaborate with us and is ready to take our 30 children in to their teaching program for poor children. Their program seems impressive as the children get lots of facilities in terms of school admission support, education, clothes, food, exhibitions, picnics etc. We are trying to work how we can take this forward and lets see how it goes about.

Before I end I would like to mention about the ORM. It was my first ORM with the AID Delhi team handling different projects all over NCR. It was a great platform for me to interact and network with so many fellow AIDers, share and learn from each others experiences and plan our strategies for the future actions at all the AID projects.

Kudos to the work all of us have been doing at AID Delhi and hope we keep on touching new heights in the coming future.

Thanks

PROJECT UPDATES: WEEK 5

It was a difficult week as we tried to do an analysis of whatever we had done till now and what we have achieved? But we actually ended up with a number of issues and challenges which we need to focus on immediately otherwise things would start getting out of order and it will get difficult to manage.

1. Since all of us are working or studying in college and are able to take classes only on weekends, the 5 days gaps which comes in between weekends makes all efforts go in vain and each week we are back to what we started last week. We realized that in order to achieve something and make our efforts worthwhile we need have a full-time setup and look for various options. We also need to have a full time teacher who is well versed with the children and can handle and teach them well on weekdays.

Abhishek and me decided to do something about it and we went 2 hours before the actual class timing and tried to find out the various options available. This is what we ended up with:

a) We had a talk with a nearby property dealer and asked him to let us know if there is any empty room available on the nearby plots which we can take up on rent and teach the children there. He sounded positive and has promised us that he will let us know in 2-3 days if there is any such room available.

b) While searching for a room nearby we came across a plot where there is a small one floor Day Care/Boarding center which is not running currently but has all the facilities available. We tried to find out the owner of the center and got to know that there is a person who takes care of this center and can help us get in touch with the owner and we can then discuss with the owner about the possibility of using that center for JAAGRITI children.

c) There is a private school nearby called Pragati Public School where poor children are taught after the regular schooling hours from 3-5 pm. There is lady who is incharge of all this and and we decided to meet the lady tomorrow morning to work out the possibility for admission of some of the children and how we can possibly associate with them for this.

d) A person takes tuition daily and teaches some of the children who are under PROJECT JAAGRITI. He charges Rs 100 per child for 1 month. He can be the right person who can take up the reponsibility of a full-timer at PROJECT JAAGRITI.

e) There is a nearby government school where we can admit some children who require continuous formal education. Some parents did try to approach them earlier but were unsuccessful in getting their kids admitted as they did have the birth certificates and other required documents.

I have decided to go late to office tomorrow morning and sort out all these issues first in order to ensure smooth running of the project. I hope to work out atleast 1-2 of the above options and get some of the children admitted to some school.

2) Another aspect which we are lacking on is the interaction with children parents. Somehow we are not able to take out enough time to meet them. But its very essential for the smooth running of the project. We interacted with some of them today and told them about our above plans and they expressed their willingness to help us out in whatever manner they can and are keen to send their children to school.

Other Updates: Apart from the above work we did take classes like always and continued with our teaching of alphabets and numbers.

>> Many new students have joined JAAGRITI and many fo them even know a lot of things. They need to be admitted to school asap.

>> Also we made an evaluation report where we noted down each child's current level of education and any specific skill which we has. This will be used to keep a track of the progress of each and every child and make an evaluation fo his learning's regularly.

>> We also interacted with the children asked them about their dreams and aspirations. Some wanted to be doctors, some engineers and a whole lot of them wants to be in the police. I could not figure out the reason behind this but i guess its the police of which they are most scared off and so want to be in their shoes and scare others. :)

Apples were given to the children and next week we plan to distribute bananas. (Sponsored by Munish).

Volunteers: Anchit and Abhishek

Its just the first month of PROJECT JAAGRITI and these challenges and hurdles were expected. I hope we are able to sort them out asap and put things in order.

Suggestions/Idea from other fellow AIDers and readers are most welcome :)

Thanks

PROJECT UPDATES: WEEK 4

I am down with fever this weekend but it did not prevent me from taking up 2 hour classes on both saturday and sunday. I was surprised to see the excitement in children in order to study and learn things. Most of them came up to me and asked me to take up classes in morning as they are more fresh and ready to study at that time and in evening they are more excited to be with their parents but somehow I managed to convince them as the weather is hot in the morning and it gets difficult to teach them under the sun. Also, more children are expected to join the classes as more labourers are going to come come up for work on the site and will be living up in the same area.

New Admissions: Raj and Rani
--Raj belongs to level 3 as he has been to school earlier and knows numbers, english and Hindi alphabets and addition and subtraction sums.
--Rani belongs to level 1 as she does not know anything and has never been to school.

Volunteer for week 4: Anchit, Kishan and Neerav
This week chocolates were given to the 2 most neat girls and boys:
Girls: Aseyan and Rajrana
Boys: Hari and Laxmi Prasad
Children were also motivated to brush their teeth regularly and be clean.

--Chocolates were are given to Dhananjay and Raj for their attentive behavior and learning ability.

As told earlier this week 2 NSIT students joined us and they interacted with the kids on Wednesday and taught them music. One of the volunteers Neerav knows guitar and had sung some good numbers in front of them which excited all of them. I could notice this excitement on Saturday also when they all were asking me where is kishan bhaiya and they themselves started singing and dancing without even me saying anything.

Level 1:

Hari is able to write well now and has moved to level 2 now.
Level 1 now includes kavita, kavita-2 , Rani and Najrana.

>> They were taught how to write, hold and move pencils and make different lines, numbers and curves.

Level 2:

1. Writing of alphabets from A-Z was taught and most of them are able to write well with few mistakes.
2. Revision of numbers from 1-20 was done.

Level 3:

1. Practice and review of whatever previous knowledge Raj has was done for him.
2. Dhananjay was taught 1 digit and 2 digit addition and 1 digit subtraction sums without any borrow. He is able to do them well and the exercise on writing of small English alphabets was also completed.

One important thing which I observed in all the kids was that most of them know know how to speak counting from 1-20 and also speak few alphabets but they are not able to recognize these numbers and alphabets when given on paper. Same goes for English alphabets. We need to focus on this aspect more and devote more time to make them memorize and recognize numbers and alphabets.

Next week 2 more NSIT Volunteers will join us and all of them will be taking classes in groups of 2 on Wednesday and Friday. On Saturday me, Abhishek and kunal will be reviewing their work and will teach the children about health, cleanliness and hygiene.

One more thing, while I was teaching them A for Apple they all started to ask for apple and now all of them want to eat an apple and want me to bring it for them whenever I meet them next. I hope I will be able to make the arrangement soon. If any volunteer is interested in sponsoring the fruits please write back to me.

And before I finish, let me mention the most touching moment for me this week. It was when I finished the class and said bye to all of them they were very excited and keen to shake hands with me. They shook hands with me once, twice, thrice till I myself didn't take my hands away. Never have children been so excited to shake hands with me, they make me felt as if I am a very important person for them like a star :) ...shayad zyada ho gaya... Anyways a good weekend both for me and the children.

Thanks

Week 3 : Project Jaagriti

This week our efforts were bolstered by support from a group of students of NSIT (an Engineering College in Dwarka). They are a group of four students who will be joining our project for the next 2 months and will take classes on Wednesday and Friday. They will work on this project as a part of their internship in the college. This will definitely help us in gaining some continuity and pace in our program. Going forward it will even help us to take up other activities during the weekend so that we can instill confidence, trust, and team play in the children.

We decided to divide the class into three levels based on the amount of prior knowledge they have so that our efforts could be channelized in a right way. This will really help us in making a roadmap for all the children and we will become far more focused in our approach.

Volunteers for week 3: Kunal and Abhishek

Level 1 and Level 2

1. Revision of first four alphabets.
2. Practicing different types of lines.
3. Reviewing the drawing exercise.
4. A general introduction on hygiene.

Level 3 (Dhananjay)

1. Small English alphabets.
2. Single digit addition.
3. Single digit subtractions.

Worksheets were also given for practice.

We came with a new idea of rewarding the most neat child of the day. This will encourage all the children to stay neat and clean always.

Thanks

Project Updates: Week 2

The week was very exciting as we not only increased our interaction with the children but also understood their lives, needs and way of living.

And frankly speaking a lot needs to be taught to the children in terms of health care, hygiene, discipline, cleanliness etc. The journey is not going to be easy but we are determined to create an impact and provide these children not only the right education but also teach them the values of life which are very essential for a living.

Volunteers for Week 2: Anchit and Abhishek

Activities:

1. A revision of the numbers exercise which was done in week1.
2. Started with teaching of english alphabets.
3. Drawing worksheets along with crayons were given to the children.
4. Had interaction with the labour Incharge and requested him to insure proper hygiene conditions near their homes.

This week we did not go ahead with the possibility of establishing a full-time set up as the place would be a long distance from their homes and it will not be possible for the children to come there. This activity is being currently postponed.

Our focus right now is to insure proper hygiene conditions around their home, teach the children how to keep themselves clean and healthy and also develop an interest in learning and getting educated which is lacking in few of them.

Planned Activities for Week 3:

1. Completion of english alphabets exercise.
2. Assignments/worksheets to be given for english alphabets.
3. Children to be taught about good health and hygiene conditions.
4. A review of the work done in the drawing worksheets given to the children.

Thanks

PROJECT Updates: Week 1

Following are the updates for the work done in Week 1 and the plan for the current Week 2:

WEEK 1:

1. Launched PROJECT JAAGRITI along with the children and volunteers.
2. Children were taught how to write, colour and counting from 1-10 was also taught.

Volunteers: Anchit, Kunal, Swati, Nikil, Abhishek.


WEEK 2: (Planned)

1. Worksheets along with stationary and crayons to be given to children on Wednesday for 1-10 numbers practice and colouring. Review of the same over the weekend.
2. Over the weekend work out the possibility for full time setup for the project.
3. Start with teaching of english alphabets.
4. Children to be taught singing by a Volunteer (Arvind).
4. Visit nearby Government School for admission of children who have been to school earlier but are not going now.

Since many children are first time learners, the project needs considerable effort in terms of developing writing and learning skills in the children and the progress so far has been really encouraging and children are picking up well.

Thanks