Educate Children from Nomadic Tribal Communities (Vanavil Nursery & Primary School)

Vennila loves to Dance and recite Rhymes! Vennila's mother is a hawker and at times resorts to begging to keep her family fed. Vennila would be accompanying her mother if not for Vanavil School. You can support Vennila's education and make her reach her dreams. There are so many Vennila's at Vanavil.

Vanavil School was started in 2005 when we realised the need for a special school for the children from the nomadic communities who were into begging as almost a traditional occupation. When we tried to enrol them in the nearby government schools the disparities were wide and deep-rooted antipathies amongst children came to the fore. Vanavil was started as a bridge school and later converted into a long-term residential school as our work with the community, made us realise that the gap is too wide to bridge in a few years. Vanavil is a critical crucial step for children as none of their parents have ever been to a school and are still semi-nomadic. The children come from an extremely malnourished context and are prone to ailments and we work on that front also.

Vanavil Nursery and Primary School runs classes from LKG to 5th standard. We run the KG classes and first standard in a mixed age group class with a Montessori environment. Our Montessori section is supported by Ramcharan Trust and other donors. Our Montessori Training and regular supervision are done by the Centre for Montessori Training – Chennai.

 

For classes 1-5, we follow a thematic learning process with students doing a project around a chosen theme every term. They do field visits, interviews, watch videos, do online research and put up their learning as Maps, models, skits, songs and booklets. We follow the Jodo Gyan program of inculcating number sense as our Math module and kids learn through games and real-life incidents to connect them to mathematical problems.

Vanavil follows up on the children in order to wean them back from begging, feed them thrice and take care of their health needs apart from educating them through child-centred innovative methods. Also, as most crucial skills are learnt in the ECE and primary classes Vanavil school equips the children from extreme backgrounds in a way that they can compete equally with the rest of the children from middle school onwards.

• We have successfully produced first graduates from a most marginalized community that was forced into begging and other sundry jobs.
• We have created a safe and happy space for extremely marginalized children in Nagapattinam.
• We are reaching higher education to a set of children who otherwise end up as dropouts.
• Our Nursery and Primary school play a key role in this project of educating the nomadic tribal children as it produces results through our happy children who excel in their studies and extra-curricular activities which motivates the community to send their children to school and to follow them through higher education.
• We have eradicated child marriages in the community.
• The school enrolment ratio of the children in the community has increased from 0% to 100% in the last 15 years.