On one wall, there is a crow putting stones in a water-pot. On another, there's a monkey sitting on a crocodile. Where have we reached? A play-school. A Govt. play-school in rural area is called aanganwadi. We are visiting an aanganwadi at Beenjawara village in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh.
The visit begins with some poetry renditions by the children. Children start attending aanganwadi from the age of two or two and a half years. At the age of five, they must progress to primary school. Learning at this stage is repetitive by chanting the same poems, numbers and alphabets daily.However, because the Govt likes to utilise aanganwadi workers for sundry chores like vaccination, pre and post natal care etc. (see image on right), children's education becomes secondary focus for them. Also, each aanganwadi has one main worker who should teach and a helper who serves as caretaker. However, both of them only get about 3 days of training in their entire job life. With such low level of training, how much interactive learning can they provide? The quality and quantity of learning material given to them is arbitrary. Currently, they have some leftover books from Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission. The only thing that comes regularly is the breakfast and lunch, prepared by some SHG in the village and packets of supplementary nutrition packed by Naandi Foundation. The food is paid for by MP Women and Child Welfare Department.
However, this aanganwadi is special as it is one of the two adopted by Agrini, an NGO founded by Gourav Jaiswal. Gourav's vision is to bring innovative learning techniques to students in underdeveloped areas. In the aanganwadi, he has brought in a computer and developed multimedia content. After multimedia, next is the use of toys and puppets. For toys, some inspiration and help has come from the toy genius of India, Anurag Gupta. Children will learn from books in primary school, this learning is aimed at improving their minds and ensuring development. Five year old children look so young in this place because of the widespread malnutrition.
Agrini's techniques are aimed first at ensuring that the kids are happy. Then they can grow and learn. When the programme began, there was a five year old boy who would sit aloof in a corner. He came from a difficult family situation as his father committed suicide. A blank face sitting apart with no emotions, no reactions. 15 days into the programme, he started sitting amongst the other children. The training techniques involve lot of laughter and fun. 45 days into the programme, he was smiling. Today, while he is still physically underdeveloped for his age, he is a merry participant in the aanganwadi activities.
Agrini is also working with high school students at Darasi Kala in Seoni. It is a place where high school students had never seen a computer until Agrini's project Shikshalaya happened. Shikshalaya and Agrini's working will be covered in my next post.
Really appreciate the efforts of those who are taking the pains of making life so beautiful for the innocent kids.... specially the paintings on the walls are beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteReally appreciate the efforts of those who are taking pains to bring smiles on faces of these innocent kids. :)
ReplyDeleteCheers to the way they are contributing to children's education and painting the walls. _/\_
had been reading once in a while ... happy blogging devika! :) That toy genius link in this one was awesome! kumari prakash
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