Parner Pre-Schools Site Visit Report
By
Anuradha Patil
Brief Description:
MASUM (Mahila Sarvangin Utkarsha Mandal) works in the Parner and Purandar blocks in Maharashtra with women and children. I was requested by Subodh, to conduct a site visit of the Parner block. Here, MASUM in collaboration with Asha, has established pre-schools (Balwadi) in remote tribal areas where there are no Government Anganwadis for kids in the age group 3 – 6 years .
Anganwadi is a government sponsored child-care and mother-care center in India. It caters to children in the 0-6 age group. These Anganwadis provide a healthy environment for children and ensure that no child in that area is malnourished. Even then, there are some remote tribal areas which are more than 5 – 10 kms away from an Anganwadi. MASUM comes into picture here, by setting up a Balwadi in such areas. They operate in a similar manner to the Government Anganwadis. The setup is also similar. Every Balwadi has a teacher and a helper. The helper ensures that food is brought from the nearby Anganwadi by lunchtime for the kids.
MASUM currently has 4 Balwadis setup in the Parner block, of which we visited two – Kuranvasti and Godsedara. The other two were deep in the interiors and would not be completed in a day.
The site visit was scheduled by MASUM representatives for 25 November 2011. The scheduling of the visit was handled by Dr. Ramesh Awasthi. I met Mr. Milind Chavan, from MASUM on the morning of the same day to begin the visit.
Site Visit: Friday 25 November 2011:
Milind and I started for Parner Taluka from Pune, Maharashtra in a hired vehicle. He required a hired vehicle as the Balwadis are located in areas which are rather impossible to access through the public transport (ST Buses). A four wheel drive is required to traverse through these terrains. The plan was to visit two Balwadis located at Kuranvasti and Godsedara tribal hamlets and reach there in time to see the schools in operation.
On our way to Parner we made a stop at Ralegan Siddhi (Anna Hazare’s village) to pick Mr. Dilip Ghavane who is primarily responsible for MASUM’s activities in these areas. We stopped for tea and then made our way to the tribal areas. The terrain to the tribal hamlets was quite barren. There were hardly any roads, and we had to plough through rocky strips and small rivers!!
We reached Kuranvasti hamlet and had to park at some distance from the school due to the lack of roads. The nearest Anaganwadi was the one at Jambolwadi hamlet. All the kids at the Kuranvasti Balwadi were also registered at Jambolwadi Anganwadi, but were unable to travel there on an everyday basis due to the long distances and terrain. Even from the place we’d parked our car, it was a good 2 – 3 km hike on foot. We walked to the Balwadi which is just a room built out of stones and mud, approximately 10 ft by 10ft with metal roofing and 2 windows for ventilation. The floor was surfaced with cow-dung a common practice in rural India. The school was already in session when we entered the room, but the kids were excited and waiting for us as they had been told of the visit. Milind introduced me to the teacher, Ms. Sunanda Dudhvade who has been with this program for quite sometime now and the helper, Ms. Meena Kedar. We sat down on the floor and asked the teacher to continue with the activities, but ofcourse this was not to happen! The kids became very shy when they encountered strangers.
Sunanda asked the children to introduce themselves by their name, but most of the children were shy and became really silent. Milind then went ahead to make the children more comfortable by interacting with them. The kids and the teachers and helpers speak only Marathi, the local language in Maharashtra, and hence, Milind would usually translate for me.
The kids then started to open up a little more and started interacting with us. A few interactive lessons were conducted with us also. One was using Dominoes, there were stacks of cardboards card which had 2 marathi letters written on them. The children had to match the letters to form a chain of all the letters. This was a lesson designed to enable the kids to recognize the letters of the language. They might not be able to read it or write (since they were very young, as young as 3 years old), but they were able to recognize the shapes of the letters.
Similar to this, we were shown various other lessons targeting the improvement of the senses: Sounds, colors, taste, touch etc.
One other lesson we did was this: there were small bottles filled with grains in different quantities. The kids had to shake the bottles and match the two having similar quantity of grains based on the sound produced.
The childred then sang a song together with the teacher and helper, and yes, we joined in! This song had a lot of actions which increased the enthusiasm of the children.
There were visual charts of fruits, vegetables, birds, alphabets, numbers, animals, flowers, means of transport hung up on the wall behind the teacher facing the children. Milind asked the children to name the objects on the chart and now almost all of the children took interest and were answering.
All the arts and crafts projects by the kids are hung all over the room to encourage the children.
Before we knew it, it was time for lunch, we decided that we should step out and let the children have their meal and we went to visit the Primary school next door.
Following are a few details obtained about the Kuranvasti Balwadi.
1. The school runs from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
2. There are currently 20 children enrolled.
3. Almost all children from the Kuranvasti Balwadi have gone on to primary school. A few who didn’t were the ones who moved away (this is a migratory population as the parents usually work for daily wages).
4. The teacher conducts activities such as songs, poems, story-telling, drawing, indoor and outdoor games etc for children on a daily basis.
5. She also uses teaching aids such as toys, charts, cards on a daily basis. Most of the educational aids are made by the teacher and helper using supplies provided by MASUM (paper, markers, color paper, crayons, paints) and what is available easily in their hamlet (like beads, grains, bangles, vegetables).
6. Lessons on Maths and Science are also taught; for eg: which of the following substances dissolve in water and which don’t? The kids have to drop the substance in water and observe and report. This lesson is fun for the children and also teaches them about how different substance react differently with water. Different lessonsalong similar lines are taught to make the kids understand the simple concepts of Science.
7. An attendance is taken on a daily basis and the same is maintained.
8. A progress report is maintained for each child.
9. All the kids art projects are maintained in files with their names and date.
We then headed to the Godsedara Balwadi. We had to drive through small rivers to get to this hamlet. And then, stopped about 1 – 2 kms away, and walked the rest of the way. The nearest Anganwadis were at Sikhri and Gopaldara hamlets, all the kids attending the Godsedara Balwadi are registered at these two Anganwadis. This school was similar to the one at Kuranvasti, except that it was smaller. When we reached the school we found the teacher Ms. Gangu and the helper Ms Tai conducting lessons for the kids. They had just had their lunch and started the afternoon lessons.
Again, Milind took upon him to have the children interact with us by asking names and few more questions. Surprisingly here the children weren’t shy and almost all of them told their names, or rather showed us their names on the walls. Their names had been written on paper and stuck to the wall. They were able to recognize their names. There are fifteen to sixteen children enrolled in the Balwadi. Similar lessons and educational aids as seen in Kuranvasti were used here too by Gangu. I found Gangu to be an exceptionally bright young woman, who could handle the children really well. We also had a singing session here, which brought a smile to everyone’s face.
Few other points of information obtained from Milind during the journey.
1. All the teachers and helpers are trained on a regular basis.
2. There is a monthly meeting held in Rlaegan Siddhi with all the teachers and helpers in the Parner block and MASUM representatives.
3. Sunanda has recently completed her tenth grade and is going on to take her twelth grade exams soon. MASUM encourages all its teachers and helper to educate themselves also.
4. The teachers come up with new lesson plans and teaching aids (through their trainings and experience)
5. Whenever an Anganwadi comes up in the same hamlet as these Balwadis, then MASUM closes down the Balwadi. This is to ensure that there is no redundancy in the pre-schools, and so that they can reach the other remote areas where there are no Anganwadis.
We then left the Godsedara hamlet and made our way back to Ralegan Siddhi, dropped Dilip and made our way back to Pune.
Conclusion:
The Balwadis are functional and the children are actually attending these. The progress has been satisfactory with the updates and information about the project progress provided by Milind and Dilip are encouraging.
The feedback I received from the teachers was that there was a need to conduct more trainings to help them be more efficient and effective.
Overall, this was a wonderful experience and allowed me to witness the ground realities in these areas. I would like to thank Milind, Dilip, Dr. Awasthi and MASUM for arranging my site visit and providing answers to all my incessant questions.
Photos and Videos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/anu512/MasumTrip25November2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL6MvsDm44__qwE&feat=directlink