Our education initiative has begun for children of particularly impoverished and marginalized families whose children are unable to access the education due to not having access to mobile phones or migrating from one state to another and not having the relevant documents with them to start school. We are very grateful to Sajeevta foundation and their directors Krutika and Gautam Patel who have guided us on this journey and provided the educational resources to our activists that can be utilized to impart some basic skill education to the parents. The idea of Sajeevta foundation is to really motivate the parents to educate their kids with basic language and word picking skills along with being able to have fun while trying to cultivate their love for learning.
The process was that the activists chose a family each. At present, we are working with six families across four districts. One family in Mehsana, one in Sabarkantha, two families in Anand and Ahmedabad. The children are all aged between 3 to 8. The first training that we had held was about the whole idea of teaching offline and how to motivate the parents. The second training was held in March after the education material was shared with the activists. We were instructing them about how to use the material. We are thankful to Gautam Patel and Kritika Patel for using their experience because they are working with 50 families in Gandhinagar at the moment. We particularly liked the way they emphasized on having equal relationship with parents and not to make them feel like there is a burden on them to impart the education. Encouraging them and being with them in this journey by sitting at the same level as them and at the same level as children – little things of significance were shared with activists.
Recently, on April 1, the organisation had a third meeting after the children had their first session with the activists. In this meeting, Gautam and Kritika patiently took the team through different stages of how they should become aware of the learning process of the child. What should we expect after first month, second month and how should progress be measured after three months were one of the prime discussions in this meeting.
The presentation shared during the meeting showcased the progress parents and children usually make in the span of six months of learning. It indicated how children gradually develops an interest in learning and how their progress motivates children and parents both to continue the process.
Peace and Equality Cell 