Section 1

Name of the basti/village? –

Ans: Hyderabad – Malakpet, Old City, Attapur, Mudford, Banjara Hills and a few more bastis in Hyderabad.

How many people live in the village/basti?

Ans: Helping many bastis in and around Hyderabad. TFI Hyderabad is helping 37 schools in different vastis.

Describe the typical homes found.

Ans: daily wage earners, rikshaw drivers or labor

What facilities exist – medical, educational, other infrastructure?

Ans: Its area dependent. Mostly yes.

What are the different social groups/cultural groups in the region?

Ans: It’s a good mix across schools.

What type of social hierarchy exists?

Ans: None

Persons of tribal origin: What was their original home?

Ans: None

How did they end up living in their current home?

Ans: Occupational and low-cost housing

What are the social issues facing them?

Ans: Domestic violence, communal violence, abuse, Women, poverty

What is the relationship between residents of the basti?

Ans: co-ordial usually apart from communal at a few places.

What are typical possessions of people living in the basti?

The basic necessities such as TV, Cycle et al

What is their access to water?

Ans: usually fine through a borewell

What kind of water connection?

Ans: borewell, tap connection or tankers

How much water is there per household?

Ans: as per the household requirement

Do they have to pay for water?

Ans: some times, rare though

What are the different occupations?

Ans: Rikshaw drivers, daily wage labors, infra labors, house-maids, mployed in a general store etc

What are the salary ranges?

Ans: INR 2,000 – 5,000/-

Do women and men work?

Ans: yes usually

What is the status of women?

Ans: Some of them work at a shop or as home-maids

How much say do women have in the economics of the household?

Ans: Not much

How much say do men have in the economics of the household?

Ans: Most

Do children work?

Ans: After a certain age or class, yes.

How do the children work?

Ans: assisting the parent to a house

What are the working conditions for the men, women and children?

Ans: As per the city standards of any other labor

What are the health hazards of the working conditions?

Ans: cant comment specifically

What are the common health issues?

Ans: Health issues related to hygiene

What health care is available?

Ans: depends from community to community

What are the existing local health care practices?

Ans: Single Doctor clinic or very small hospitals

Section 2

What are your goals in working with this community?

Ans: To ensure each child in that community gets excellent education and does not rote learning

What are the different needs the community has? Which ones of these are you able to

currently address? Are there other areas you’d like to expand into?

Ans: The community needs awareness on many social concerns viz. women empowerment, primary education and hygiene. TFI is able to help with primary education and is also able to touch some aspects of women empowerment through girl child learning and hygiene education.

Section 3

How did you start working with the children in your community? What type of programs?

Ans: Approaching the schools in different areas.

How many children are there enrolled in your program?

Ans: approx. 3600 in Hyderabad alone

Number of girls and boys in the program.

Ans:

How many facilitators?

Ans: 110 fellows (Teachers) and 12 (staff mentors)

Age range of children

Ans: 5 – 8 years

What skills did the children already know when they joined you?

Ans: basic literacy

What are the abilities of the children?/disabilities?

Ans: as of now none

Personalities of the children? What are the children’s social outlooks?

Ans: conservative

How do the children see themselves?

Ans: case-dependent

How is their health care and nutritional needs taken care of?

Ans: Family

How is education viewed by the community? What are their expectations around education?

Ans: An integral component till primary or grade 5

What is the schools curriculum?

Ans: State syllabus – AP board

What is your experience implementing the curriculum?

Ans: rote learning, not concept based and very limited in activity.

What are the challenges?

Ans: parental mindset, acceptance by the school and teachers, change in teaching methodology

What has worked well?

Ans: Mingling of the fellow with the teachers and the results post the implementation after 2-3 months

Do you use any evaluation systems to gauge the children’s learning?

Ans: assessments beginning of the year and at the end of the year, formative assessment throughout the year

Are there any language barriers to learning?

Ans: Yes. Children are first generation English language learners

Experience of children moving to more formal schools?

Ans: Rare, usually due to occupational shifts

How have the children changed since being in the more formal schooling system?

Ans: Not much of an experience in TFI Hyd

Are there any learning for you from this?

Ans: building government relations of each state, developing the education landscape in some regions of south India.