Sukaniya Samriddhi Yojana

A month ago, team ECC attended a session on various government schemes that are either related to girl child education or to under- privileged children's education. Sachin Pandharinath Wagalgave, one of the tram members decided that he would like to understand this scheme a bit better.So, he decided to visit one of the India Post Offices close to his house. As an uncle to two nieces he thought to gift them both something that will help them in their higher education and he opened their accounts under 'Sukaniya Samriddhi Yojana'.

Once he experienced this procedure himself, he started to mobilise parents of the girls in various construction sites. In about a month 8 parents opened their girl child's account under the scheme.

Spirit of WIPRO

On September 17, 2017 WIPRO, one of our funding partners organised a Marathon event. Invites were sent to NGOs that they are supporting with funds. Door Step School was one such invitee. Children presented lezium act, Dance cum Drama on RTE, 5 K run and participated in inter NGO dance performance. Five children who've excelled in academics last year were felicitated too.

A gesture to acknowledge co-existence!

The campaign, Every Child Counts (ECC) under Door Step School, Pune works towards enrolment of out of school children from migrant labour camps. ECC staff works closely with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Zilla Parishad (ZP) Schools for these children’s admission. These children get their admission under Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2009. This allows them to seek admission throughout the academic year without having to waste their year as they migrate with their parents from place to place. All of this is possible as the schools extend their support when approached. Sometimes it does bring them discomfort as the process needs to be followed in the middle of the academic session, sometimes several times in a year.  

On Teacher’s Day every year from the inception of the practice, ECC team organises a small celebration in schools covering PMC, PCMC, Haveli and Mulshi Talukas. The selection of these schools is mostly done on the basis of fulfilling the need to develop rapport between the ECC staff and the school staff. There were about 15 such schools selected this year in PMC, PCMC, Mulshi and Haveli Talukas. Celebrations included participatory games such as musical chair, balloon games, hula-hoop games, etc in-order to get them to have fun and spend recreational time with their colleagues, something they often don’t get to do. Initially, it was observed that the teachers hesitated to play. Later, students encouraged their respective class teachers and cheered them. Teachers then were given a pen and a greeting card as token of appreciation for the many ways in which they support the ECC Campaign.

In closing, ECC team expressed the need to keep the communication going in terms of providing them monthly progress reports of the children enrolled in the school. And offered help if there is anything that the team must know to further improve the operations.

Hula Hoop

Hula Hoop 

Musical Chair

71st Independence Day: Acknowledging small yet important efforts

On the eve of Independence Day, children were quite excited as they were going to be part of double celebration the next day. Early morning, they were to attend school for flag hoisting followed by a small cultural program. Later, around 10:00 am Door Step School (DSS) team had also organised short fun filling program for parents and children in various construction sites.

As soon as the team arrived at various sites, children and their parents assembled to an open space. They were all informed about the celebrations but were unaware of the fact that they will also be asked to participate. At every site, DSS team addressed the gathering with the information on importance of tricolour flag. Later, parents expressed their will to share a few words too. In Digdhi Construction site a parent, namely, Najma Sayyed Khan, happen to share her thoughts. She said, “this is my first year of sending my daughter to school. This morning while dressing her up for Independence Day, I felt as if I am in dreams. I use to question myself whether I’ll ever be able to send her to school. Never thought with the kind of money that we earn, schooling was possible for our children. It was the awareness on RTE that was imparted to us by Sir (Sadashiv, a supervisor at DSS) earlier this year when we had just migrated to this site make this dream come true. I thank them all. Jai Hind!”

Photo: Najma addressing one-and-all present there.

Parents were involved along with the children. Recreational games like musical chair, passing the ball, balancing a book on head, lemon and spoon, etc were being played at different sites.

Photo: Parents participation in recreational activities

Children were equally excited to share their time spent in school. “teacher, aaj hum school paidal gaye the. Gaadi ko chhuti thi na. School me humne jhanda geet gaya aur hume rashtra gaan bhi ata hai toh who bhi gaya. Sunaye? !”

Photo: Group of girls presenting a song

Entire team of Door-Step School, would like to express their gratitude towards all those volunteers present at various sites and contributed in every way possible.

Photo: A volunteer seen distributing packets of biscuits among all the children present.

With the aim to spread awareness among migratory labours that schooling of their children is possible, DSS team could get active parents involvement in their children’s education this past one year. Without missing out on the opportunity to acknowledge parents and their efforts, Team DSS tried celebrating the day with a meaning.

Few Facts and Numbers: Under Every Child Counts campaign, 13 Centres were covered involving minimum of 600 parents and close to 715 children in total.

Under Project Foundation, 45 centres were covered.

We await the next Independence Day with a guaranteed excitement and joy to be shared with you all! 

Earned one more smile... Isn’t it beautiful one... (Volunteer Experience)

It all started when I was coming from office. Cab drop point is around one km away. As usual I was walking towards home with earphones plugged in… suddenly realized someone behind me.. was calling me… I turned off music… one skinny lady, with sac of recyclable material picked up from garbage on road, was following me. She came to me.

“Maaay moh kaee kaam milate kate pahave maaay.. durun aalo amhi.. parabhani warun.. tya neo city chya labour camp madhye rahato.. tithach kaambi karite.. lek balantin zaliye.. pagar naeee dila malakane… chul petawayala roj hyo kachara gola karite.. 5-10 rupye milatat kacharyache.. moh kaee kaam milate ka bagha. (Please see if some work I can get. We came from parabhani. Living in neo city labor camp. Work there itself.. daughter came for delivery. Haven’t got salary yet. Need some money to make every day’s bread and butter, that’s y picking up this recyclable material from garbage. I get few rupees out of it. Please see if I can get some work.)”

She sounded very much honest. But she is just passed 8th standard. She felt reluctant to work in office. So I asked her to come home for house work.

Second day she came with her son, around 12 yrs old son. While she was finishing work , I started talking with her son. I asked him in which school he is studying and all. I got to know he doesn’t go to school. His mother told me they are finding it difficult to get admission here as they don’t have school transfer certificate. So her two sons are not being able to get admission here and indeed their schooling is abandoned.

I called Rajani madam from Door Step school. Told her all the situation. She told me , she will inform her DSS representatives here and they will help me.

On Saturday I got call from DSS representative, they told they will meet me on Sunday.

I went to Neo City (construction site) labor camp on Sunday by 11 am to meet DSS representative. We found that there are few more students who are out of school. We talked with their parents, identified problems they are facing. DSS representative told me that they will help all parents to get admission in school. Kid’s parents looked so much grateful as they were doing Namaskar to all of us. We returned with promise from parents that they will send their kids to school.

The boy in photo is younger son of the lady who has started working at my house. Another kid in photo is her granddaughter (in other word cute photo of mama-bhachi).

I asked this boy to read book, he read few pages fluently. I asked him to tell tables. He spoke 1-30 tables. He told full ABCD. Sang few poems.

While listening to him few thoughts were running through my mind which resulted in tears in my eyes- "Look at this boy.. he is so much talented.. he was about to miss his schooling.. could have just abandoned somewhere because of many more factors not just poor family…"

Feeling amazed… few incidences which happened randomly in last few days are going to result in something valueable.. This talented boy is indeed will continue with his schooling.. just look at his smile in photo.. His smile has reflected on my face with tons of amazed happy expressions…

Thanks to Door Step School representatives. Without their help this was impossible…

School chale hum… ohoho…

- Hemshri Lakhapati, Volunteer

(This is a nice example of how every citizen, without disturbing their own schedule, can contribute towards education of out-of-school children. Thank you Ms. Hemshri, for sharing this wonderful experience! - Door Step School, Pune)

Story of Ganesh Sutar - A Bright and Promising Student

Ganesh Baburao Sutar, age 16 years, is studying in class 8th in Mahatma Phule School, Pisoli, Pune. He has two younger sisters, Pooja, 12 and Poonam 11. Their mother passed away when Poonam was just 6 months old and same time their father left the 3 children to life’s mercy and went away.

Ganesh’s maternal aunts and his uncle, who works as a construction labourer, stepped up and decided to take responsibility of the children. However, the siblings are separated, each staying with one relative so as to distribute the burden of expenses.

With a broken home and no one to look upto, Ganesh’s life would have been very different. But with the support from his maternal uncle and his own determination, Ganesh is doing very well as a student and a human being today.

Our team met Ganesh 4 years back through our “Parents’ Participation in Children’s Education” program in Undri area in Pune. Ganesh was already in school then but not his sisters and he always wished for them to be in school too. While conducting survey to find out of school children on the site, Ganesh was a big help to our team. When he understood our objective, he enthusiastically accompanied us to all the houses of kids staying in that area. He also expressed his wish to enrol his sisters to school and our team was more than happy to help.

Ganesh is a smart and helpful kid. He is regular at school and is especially good in Mathematics. He also helps other students with their studies. The teaching staff is all praise for him as are we.

Ganesh’s prowess at Maths prompted our team to look for ways to further his knowledge on that subject. We approached Mr. Barve of Bhaskaracharya Institute, Pune for vacation course on Mathematics. After the workshop, Mr. Barve got impressed by the boy's hard work and dedication and suggested to send Ganesh to attend Mr. Gore’s coaching class in Shanivar Peth, Pune. DSS team helped him to take admission in the coaching class.

The distance between Ganesh’s place of residence and the class is 11-15 kms. The class timings are in late evening, from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm and Ganesh has to take a bus to commute. He has never complained nor has missed a class.

He manages his studies and helps his sisters and classmates too. He sees to it that all the children in his surrounding area attend school; in case they don’t listen, he informs DSS team for intervention.

In 7th grade, Ganesh stood 1st in his school and secured 85% marks with 96/100 in Mathematics. Since his last school was only till 7th, he has now been enrolled to a new school so that he can continue his education.

We, at Door Step School, strongly believe that every child can perform well with little help by right people at right time. Examples like Ganesh Sutar reiterate the importance and benefits of bringing all children into mainstream of education.

We wish Ganesh all the best for his further studies and look forward to help many other children out there waiting for support!

Citizens' Campaign for Out-of-School Children - Lokmat Newspaper

(Click on the image to read.)

Connecting Schools and Parents through Meetings

Involving parents in their child's education is a challenging task. The Every Child Counts (ECC) team organizes frequent meetings and programmes for parents, at communities and in schools. The objective is creating awareness among parents about education, explaining school admission process to them, and answering their queries and doubts about children and schools.

Initially, ECC team conducted these meetings only on community level. However, with increasing participation and support from school authorities, these meetings are now being conducted inside the schools. This helps parents in knowing the school environment where their children will be going every day and it also helps them interact with teachers directly.

In the Haveli Block of Pune District, ECC team is conducting meetings for parents at Zilla Parishad schools. The Block Education Officer Ms. Jyoti Parihar Madam is personally attending these meetings to interact with parents. She is trying to understand their challenges, whether they are getting proper support from school or not, and also if there are any other requirements. Recently these meetings were conducted at Bakori ZP school and Kesnand ZP School. The meeting at Kesnand school was also attended by Hon. Sarpanch of the village and members of school management committee.

This serves as a platform for the parents to express their experiences and challenges. After talking with the teachers and authorities like BEO, they seem to start feeling positive about school and the entire system. While sharing improvements observed in their children, they felt very excited. Some of them also felt guilty that they are not able to think for their children beyond basic needs due to their struggle for survival. They got very emotional while talking about their children and the help offered by ECC team and school teachers. This has also helped in sensitizing the school teachers about ground level situation and practical challenges before the parents.

The government officer and school teachers appreciated ECC team for their persistent efforts and systematic work. The parents are also thankful to the team for helping their children learn. This kind of experience is a moral booster for the entire team.

Few more meetings will be arranged in this month, to ensure positive turnout from parents and schools in the next academic year.

(Reported by Dattatray Vetal and team, Door Step School, Pune)

The Picture Is Changing…

In the year 2009-10, Government of India declared free and compulsory elementary education for all children between 6 and 14 years of age, through the Right To Education (RTE) Act. Door Step School (DSS) was already working for education of children in and around Pune city, who were left out of formal schooling system due to various reasons. An opportunity was identified through the RTE Act, to help many out-of-school children in getting enrolled in formal schools. The Every Child Counts (ECC) campaign was thus launched in Pune in year 2011. Surveys were conducted of temporary slums, construction sites, brick kilns, and other such communities where out-of-school children could be found. These children were taken to nearby government schools by creating awareness among their parents. The ECC team also followed up to ensure that these children are attending schools regularly.

Recently, a get-together was organized by Door Step School, for children and parents from migrant communities in Vishrantwadi and Dhanori areas within Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) limits. These children were enrolled in government schools between 2013 and 2015, and they have continued their education through last three years. The team identified 28 such children in this area and approached their parents for the get-together. A total of 18 children and 8 parents attended the programme on Sunday, 5th of March 2017 at Ayyappa Garden, Dhanori. The idea was to appreciate and encourage these children and parents for continuing education despite all odds.

The children spoke about their experience of starting to attend a formal school. Many of them were first generation learners, with no background of education at home. Almost all of them mentioned that they were first afraid of entering a school and did not even know the local language, Marathi, at that time. They were also worried about how other students and teachers would treat them. The new surroundings were daunting and fear of rejection was very real.

One of the children, Renuka, was enrolled in 3rd standard according to her age that time. Initially, she was not at all interested in school as she could not understand anything taught there. However, the teachers helped her overcome the initial hurdles and she has now reached 7th standard. Her parents had to migrate frequently due to nature of their work. But very soon they realized that this is causing disturbance in Renuka’s education. Hence, they took a room in this area on rent so that the family could stay at one place through all these years. Renuka is now very much interested in attending the school and studying various subjects. She wants to become a teacher when she grows up. When asked the reason, she replied that she wants to educate other girls like her and help them become independent!

Gangaram Rathod was also enrolled in 3rd standard in a nearby government school. His parents had migrated from Bihar to Pune in year 2013 in search of employment. Since the family was struggling for survival, education of the child could not be a priority. Even when the ECC team approached these parents for Gangaram’s school admission, they said that we are here only for a short while and will move back to our native place soon. They also kept saying that Marathi is not our language, we will send our children to a school in our village when we move back. The team persistently followed up with the parents and enrolled Gangaram in 3rd standard according to his age that time. The family still lives in Pune and Gangaram is now in 7th standard. This year, we arranged a bicycle for him for commuting to school everyday on his own. His parents are now keen to continue his education. Their job demands them to migrate frequently, but they are now looking for a hostel for Gangaram so that his education is continued. Gangaram aspires to pursue higher education in computer engineering.

There are many other children like Renuka and Gangaram, who needed the initial support to start their education. Now they are fond of school, have learnt and mastered the local language, and have also made local friends. The parents took some time in believing what ECC team was telling them. But eventually they were convinced that only education can bring positive change in their children’s lives. The parents were happy and proud of their children dreaming big and progressing in that direction. They do not want their children to struggle in the same way they have done throughout their life. The parents realize that dreams of their children are too big, but they at least expect them to be skilled workers and get assured jobs instead of being mere labourers on daily wages. The children and parents both are now ready to face any challenges coming in the way.

There were few fun games for the parents at the event. Children were happy to cheer up for their parents, and the parents played and won and fought like children. The get-together also included a storytelling session by Mr. Ajay Dasgupta of The Kahani Project. He gave the children few insights on what they can do today instead of waiting to grow up for doing something. Children and their parents equally enjoyed the story told by Ajay, which taught children how to face and conquer fear. Ajay advised the children to convert their biggest fear into their best friend, so that they can achieve anything in life.

The children continuing their education throughout these years were felicitated along with their parents. The ECC team believes that this kind of interaction helps strengthen the trust and build up the confidence, bringing positive change in parents’ approach towards children’s education.

A similar get-together was organized for another group of children enrolled from Bhosari, Dighi, and Moshi areas in Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) limits. This programme was held on 26th of March 2017 at Bhosari Garden on Pune-Nashik Highway. Around 70 parents and 107 children from 15 locations participated in this event. The parents are daily wage labourers, mostly coming from other states. After persistent efforts by the ECC-PCMC team, the parents have realized importance of education in their children’s lives. In spite of uncertain nature of work, they are now staying at one location since last couple of years, so that their children can continue attending the school they were enrolled into. Even children from highly migrant communities in Phuge Vasti and other areas are now seen regularly going to schools.

Volunteers from Wipro and few other individuals helped the ECC team in organizing games for children and parents at this get-together.

We hope to see many more children get into mainstream of formal education and continue attending schools by overcoming the challenges thrown at them by life. Door Step School is all geared up to help them progress towards achieving their dreams.

(Events organized and reported by: Ravindra Thakare, Gauri Katkar, Sadashiv Satpute, Manjiri Diwe, Sanika Patwardhan, Ankita Yadav, Door Step School, Pune team.)

Get-together of Children in PCMC area

The 'Every Child Counts' (ECC) team is working in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad (PCMC) cities since year 2011, for survey and enrollment of out-of-school children. We are in touch with children enrolled from Bhosari, Dighi, and Moshi areas between year 2013 and 2015 by ECC PCMC team. A get-together has been organized for these children still continuing their education, and their parents. They will share their experiences and challenges faced by them.​

​​Date:  Sunday, 26th of March 2017

​​Time: 9:30am to 1:00pm

Venue: Bhosari Sahal Kendra, Behind Ankush Landge Sabhagruh, Bhosari, Pune - 18

​Contact Person​s:

Sadashiv: 9921970796 / 8856830884

Manjiri tai: 8600217598 / 7248915899

Do join us in felicitating and encouraging them.

Inspiring Story of Volunteers from Hyderabad

Bhanu Chander works as a STEM trainer for a Robotics company in Hyderabad. He and few of his friends wanted to help children in nearby slums get education. They visited the slums and interacted with parents and kids to understand reasons for children not attending schools. Apart from financial constraints, it was also observed that many parents did not know about local schools and their admission procedures. The volunteers approached a residential school and helped five children get admission. However, the children did not continue due to various reasons, fear and insecurity of the parents being major reasons. Accepting the failure of their first attempt, the volunteers then tried to get these children enrolled in nearby government schools. Most of the children belong to labourer families who have migrated from other states and cities to Hyderabad. Obviously, the children do not understand the local language - Telugu. The government school teachers informed volunteers that the children need to know at least basics of the Telugu language, if they want to attend the school.

Stuck in this situation, Bhanu started looking for help and came across Door Step School's programmes for migrant workers' children. In the month of October 2016, Bhanu wrote to us about his experience and plans about the children. His friends had already decided to start teaching the children on weekends, but they were clueless about how and where to start. During next one month, we had numerous interactions through e-mail, phone calls, and WhatsApp. We discussed various options like involving a local NGO from Hyderabad, conducting the study class in nearby school, building rapport with the parents, etc.

The volunteers have now started their weekend classes in the slum. They are introducing Telugu, English, and basics of Mathematics to the children between 5 and 14 years age group. Around 20-25 children attend these classes conducted by volunteers on Sarurdays and Sundays. They keep a track of what is being taught in each session, so that they can plan further sessions with same or different volunteers as per their availability. Door Step School has a reading skill development kit already prepared and being used for Marathi language. We are trying to replicate a similar teaching module for Telugu. We are also working out how English and numeracy skills can be taught to these children with help of simple teaching tools and workbooks.

The volunteers recently celebrated Children's Day in the slum. Parents have started responding positively and are happy to see their children learning something new every week. The volunteers are very much determined to bring these children into mainstream of education by start of next academic year. The Every Child Counts campaign was launched by Door Step School in 2011, with a vision of involving concerned citizens in education of out-of-school children, making it an organic and sustainable model of community development. Bhanu and his friends from Hyderabad are setting a wonderful example of how citizens can contribute towards the larger goal of 'Education For All'.

Every Child Counts – Bengaluru Pilot

Every Child Counts – Bengaluru Pilot

Bengaluru continues to see significant construction activity. A vast majority of these construction workers are migrant labourers.  Education of their children poses a challenge. Only a small percentage of the children of migrant labourers attend school, the rest remains out of school because of various reasons, they need to stay at home to take care of the younger siblings, or schools are inaccessible or simply they can’t cope up with schools having stayed out of school for prolonged time.

Though various NGO’s and government have been working to address this problem, it is a work in progress, any help is usually welcome.
 It is with that premise, this initiative originated, asking the question:

“How can an ordinary citizen in Bengaluru contribute to the cause of the education of the migrant labourer?”

 That question brought together a team of a set of likeminded people, with a desire to contribute something to cause of the education of the children of migrant labourers. The first lead to finding the answer was the “Every Child Counts Citizen Campaign” or ECC.  Inspired by the successful journey of ECC Pune, which has been working for the last five years with a similar objective, the team aligned to the goals and methodology set down by that campaign.

The goals and the plan to achieve the goals began to take shape. The short term goal was to pilot an ECC Clone in one location of Bengaluru. Haralur road, which borders the HSR layout, Hosur Road and Sarjapur Road, which has been witnessing a boom in construction activities was selected as the pilot location. Enrolling the out of school around two government schools of Haralur road thus became the primary objective of the campaign.
The campaign adopted the same structure ECC Pune had laid out.

• Citizen would survey the locality, identify out of school children between the age of 6 and 10, and collect the details.
• Citizen would engage an NGO and with their help, use the data collected to chalk out a practical plan to enrol the children identified to the government schools. The best case would be NGO selected would have funding to set up bridge schools in that locality.
• NGO with the citizen execute that plan – enrol children directly to schools, set up bridging facility for the ones who cannot be enrolled.

As the citizen volunteers were not part of any NGO, the team choose to stick to the name of original – Every Child Counts – Bengaluru Pilot.

Given that the citizen volunteers had minimal experience in such surveys, the team approached for help, ECC Pune, Azim Premji Foundation and Gubbachi, all experts in this area.

Experts from ECC Pune were more than willing to share not just their experience, but also the toolkit required for the campaign. Gubbachi assured that if in case it emerged that there is a significant number of out of school children in Haralur road, they could potentially be the partnering NGO in the campaign.

Thus after an orientation session held attended by 11 citizen volunteers, the campaign kick started.  The citizen volunteers surveyed the Haralur area for 4 consecutive Sundays. Open source Android apps for surveying were also made available. The volunteers met with parents or relatives of children of the labourers.

The volunteers were received mostly warmly by the people. Their apprehensions would often ease out after a few minutes of conversation. Knowledge of local language became crucial to the success as majority of the people surveyed were from North Karnataka. Knowledge of Hindi, Telegu became useful too. The clusters surveyed ranged from decently organised labour camps by the big builders, to unhygienic chaotic shanties. Sunday 12.00 became the standard time for surveying the locations, as the team found the parents of the children being available on site for conversation.

Most of the parents were willing to send their children to school, provided some of the concerns were met. This included -

• a safe transport to the school,
• a day care for their younger sibling,
• mitigating unsafe conditions in the schools.

The initial survey was led by volunteers with prior experience.  The apprehension that whether novice citizen volunteers would scale to their level dissolved in the second week, where the first timers did a wonderful job of initiating and carrying on conversations with the labourers.  Though the number of volunteers dropped, the volunteers from the same locality continued the survey till it covered the target area.

With 52 children identified in approximately 1 square kilometre, the first phase of the campaign achieved what it set out to achieve, a handful of volunteers completing the survey of the locality, identifying children in the age group of 6-10. The labourers found were mostly from north Karnataka, and the rest from West Bengal.

The campaign has now moved on to the next phase, evolve a plan of action along with Gubbachi.  The data thus collected have been handed over to NGO Gubbachi.  Therefore the campaign stands at a crucial phase, where without any funding, it has to solve problems such as setting up a bridge school, arrange for transportation, etc. The positive response from Gubbachi has kept the hopes of the team high so far. The team hopes that in the coming weeks, it will be able to address most of these challenges.

- Reported by Ranjit A Pillai, ECC - Bengaluru