Educate A Child

This programme was initiated in the early nineties as many visitors from abroad after field visits to education programmes, expressed their desire to support children from destitute families to complete their schooling, in their individual capacity. The education scenario in the nineties comprised of vast numbers of children who never went to school, and of those who went, many dropped out to join the army of child laborers and street children. The parents were often illiterate and were unable to provide any support to help their children to remain in school.

Over the years, due to intensive efforts of the government and NGOs, enrolment in schools improved, with dropout rates improving slowly over the decades. CINI’s intervention in working with street children, child laborers, and platform children over the years in the city of Kolkata, threw light upon the need to set up “schools” in the slum areas. These should be easily accessible, running at a convenient time, staffed by local volunteers, in spaces provided by the local community. Objectives are:

• To ensure enrolment of all children and to support them to remain in school

• Sensitizing the school teachers and build up strong school-community linkage

The strategy adopted is to provide after-school support to children to compensate for the poor quality of education provided in government schools. Customarily this is provided by parents both rich and poor through “private tuitions”. Poor motivated parents were unable to provide these inputs.

Each learning center is located in the slums, space provided by local youth clubs, and community spaces owned by religious or political groups. Each center is staffed by one volunteer, known as “Shishumita” (SM) in charge of up to a maximum of 30 children. Each SM is usually a graduate living in the locality, who works for about 2 to 3 hours and are trained by CINI.

The learning centers provide the requisite back up support (accelerated as well as following school curriculum for grade wise learning improvement) to the children vulnerable to drop out from schools. All round development of children is the motto; children are provided with academic as well as counseling support, creativity inputs, and different pieces of training on self-development. Although the support is for an individual child, a cluster of children from the same background get support through the Learning Centres.

When the programme was initiated, the objective was to ensure the enrolment of all children and to support them to remain in school. Over the decades, the focus changed from supporting the children in all possible ways to remain in school, to continue their education up to high school, as school enrolment became universal.

The project supports a child for at least 2 years through education support at learning centres and tracking. Although the support is for an individual child, the amount is used in providing education to a group of children from the same background through learning centres.

The project creates an impact on the children, their families and communities.

Direct impacts on children are their enrollment and retention in formal schools with quality learning outcomes, behavioral modification. The support also protects the child from the evils of early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and child labor.

Parents/ families are sensitized and counseled on effective parenting and their role in ensuring education and safety for their children through regular visits, meetings, and sessions.

The communities are also sensitized on the rights of the children and the number of out of school children is reducing creating a positive and sustainable impact.