Community Development Program

In association with the Rotaract Club of NSIT, Jaagriti has started a Community Development Program, with the following objectives:

· To understand education, economic and health and nutrition background, and various challenges faced by the families in the communities under Jaagriti, with special focus on need for micro-finance and status of women and infant care.

· To generate awareness and consciousness among the families about the importance and benefits of education, health-care and nutrition so that these are taken-up as a choice and not coercion.

· To evaluate what difference Jaagriti has made to their lives, how we can further provide support to them, and develop a bond of trust and affection between the children, their families and Jaagriti.

This would be helpful to Jaagriti in developing sustainable solutions for addressing the needs of the communities, taking into account the communities background and the challenges being faced by them.

Special focus will be on community of construction workers (migrant labourers) at our projects, as they are one of the most vulnerable sections of the society with very limited facilities, negligible government support and receive low wages.

The NSIT Rotaract and Jaagriti volunteers have developed a questionnaire (attached) for this and also done some studies (about state of construction workers, BPL cards, government schemes, micro-finance etc.) to conduct the survey more effectively.

The program is being implemented from today and will move ahead in a phased manner:

Phase 1: Survey of 50+ families of migrant labourers, along with focused group discussions to generate awareness about need for education, health and nutrition and various government facilities available to them. (April 2010)

Phase 2: Compilation of Data, result analysis and final report preparation. The finding of the surveys will be shared with relevant stakeholders at both, state and central level. (May-June 2010)

Phase 3: Discussions, Brainstorming sessions and presentations within community to generate awareness and also within Jaagriti team to make our initiatives more effective.

The above is a pilot program and it will undergo lot of changes during the various phases of implementation. Once completed, the above 3 phases will be replicated at other communities under Jaagriti and various follow-up sessions will also be planned.

NSIT Rotaract Volunteers: Medha, Rishab, Chanpreet, Nehal, Chandramohan, Mahima, Kamini, Vibhor, Shryans and Manish

As always, we need your suggestions and comments to make the program more effective and fruitful.

Mobile Library

At Jaagriti, our focus has always been on developing basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills among the children. With this perspective, the initiative of Mobile Library has been started at Jaagriti to inculcate the habit of reading among the children, to enhance their learning and also keep them more informed about the world.

We have initially started with about 50 books, which contain very short stories in Hindi and English along with pictures describing the stories. Children first understand the pictures and then relate them to what is written in the book. The books have been procured from PRATHAM books and some primary level books, collected during the Joy of Giving week campaign, are also being used.

We visit the project every weekend to issue books to the children and also teach them how to understand and read the book.

The children can avail the service very easily, they don't need to have any Library Card and can borrow the books by just entering their name in the record book. Books borrowed from the library can be used for two weeks.

It has been 3 weeks since we started this initiative and the response of the children has been very good. As new academic session is about to begin next month, we look forward to conduct some drives to collect second hand primary class books for our children. We are also exploring options of using some software (such as CBFL program by TCS) to help us in this initiative and will also introduce a daily one hour reading period in our classes.

Like always, we look forward for your suggestions/comments to strengthen our initiatives and increase our outreach.

Thanks

Anchit and Kant

Sadbhavna-2010

What more can someone ask for? It was a great day filled with lots of fun and enjoyment for about 80 children and more than 20 volunteers at Jaagriti. Sadbhavna-2010 was organised by NSIT Rotaract Club and Jaagriti at NSIT in Dwarka. The day started withsports events, where boys competed with each other in 3 leg race and girls in lemon spoon race. The children were divided in groups of 4 and the group which completed the race in shortest time, emerged as the winner. Children eagerly took part in the races and cheered each other. Finally, 4 girls and 4 boys won the prize.

By this time, the children had started feeling very hungry as they had not even had breakfast and so we took them to have some delicious food in the college mess. All the children really liked the chole-bhature and rajma-chawal, served to them by the mess staff.Some of the children just came to me and said: Bhaiya, humne kabhi zindagi main itna khana nahi khaya, aaj bahut maza aaya. :)

Next in line was the Confidence Building session by an NSIT teacher, Dr. Duru Maam. The children were taken to the NSIT Auditorium and for many of them it was first time that they were seeing such a big hall and stage. Each child was asked to come in front and tell their name, about themselves, their family, what they like and what they want to become in future. And this was the most interesting session among all. Many of the girls, even few boys were very shy to come forward and talk about themselves. They either hid themselves or covered their faces with hands. But finally all of them came out and spoke well.

Priyanka wants to become a doctor and serve the people in her village, Gomati wants to become a dancer, Rajrana wants to becomes a teacher, Kaushal wants to become Desh ka Sipahi, Prince wants to become an IAS Officer, all of them have big dreams in their eyes. Even the 5 year old Rinku has already decided to become an Police Inspector in future. Many of them also sung songs and recited poems. And to our surprise, they knew the whole song or poem and spoke each word very clearly. I wondered, if I ever recited any poem so well in my childhood, like these children did.

Now it was time for some dance and fun on the DJ. All the children and volunteers danced together for an hour. Many of the children danced very well with the volunteers while some were very shy including myself, some were jumping, some just watching and some of them just moving their legs and shaking their hands, lost in their own world. Gomati emerged as the best dancer and will be receiving a special prize. Finally, we packed our bags and dropped the children back to their homes but many of them were not ready to go back and wanted to enjoy more. We promised to bring them back again and also take them for a picnic soon.

One thing special I liked about today’s events was that it was the first time children from our two projects had come together and all of them got mixed up well with each other, played and danced together. It was a complete FAMILY!

Special Thanks to NSIT Rotaract Club members, who coordinated the entire event. It was a great show and we hope to do together lot many such activities in future. Many club members have already joined Jaagriti as regular volunteers. Thanks everyone, all our volunteers, donors, associates and well wishers, who have made it possible for Jaagriti to take such initiatives and bring a change in the lives of those in need.

Check out the lovely Pics taken by Kant, athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jaagriti

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