Shantinagar Visit on 26th Sep'10

Dear all,
I hope everyone is doing fine !!!
As a part of our Enrollment drive at Shantinagar, yesterday me,Krishna and few new volunteers visited to the area and interacted with childrens and families. Since its been long, it was necessary to interact with them as to proceed with the enrollment drive at Shantinagar.

During interaction, i found some observations so i am sharing that with all of you.
Few Observations :
1. Yasmin, Javed & Junaid's mother is very much interested to send her children to school.But somehow i felt that her husband isnt much interested to send their children to school. When i asked him, he told me that he is equally interested to send them to school but his body language and behaviour wasnt showing that. When i was interacting to the mother, before reacting to me she was doing eye contact to her husband. I might be wrong but i felt like she was hesitating to answer me in front of her husband. Another thing, last time we conducted FD session with all the ladies in this area, these children's mother told us that her husband is not willing to send their children to school and she told us that she feels very helpless since her husband isnt supporting her in their children's education. Inspite of all these facts, all 3 childrens are very bright and willing to go to school especially Yasmin.

2. Sonu and Guru's mother is very much interested to send her children to school as soon as possible. The only thing she concerned about is that she wants her children to go in proper school so that they will be able to read, write and speak. She had some bad experience with some other school (according to me it was Aanganwadi) where teachers never teach children how to read, write and speak any letters or numbers. She gave us surity that if her childrens will be enrolled in proper school, she will make sure that both Sonu and Guru will attend the school regularly.
She herself has done her education till 10th standard so she is aware of importance of education.

3. Ashok Dave's middle child Mamta is 6 years old and never attended any school yet. She is suffering from some stomach pain from long time and she havent got any proper treatment yet. Her mother is no more so watver diet doctor has mentioned for her, she is not be able to follow that properly. Her father works outside whole day so her elder sister Roshni (8 years) takes care of her siblings for whole day. Mr. Ashok wants both Mamta and Roshni to go to school but at the same time he wanted to get her disease cure as soon as possible. Need to get proper medication urgently for this girl if we can in any possible way.

There is one person from this same locality name Madhav Manmothe. He was always very helpful for us while interacting with the families. He knows the locality well and really concerns about the children and their education. He even told us that whenever we will visit Shantinagar next time, we should inform him earlier so that he will be able to be there to help us. His desire and dedication to help us is unexpressable.

Inspiring thing was we visited Shantinagar after long time but still families and children there to whom we interacted earlier knows us very well with our names. It was quite touching. And they are very hopeful about us that we will be able to enrolled these children into the school.

This doubles our reponsibility and we need to keep track with the families and childrens on regular intervals.

Please share your views and comments !!!

Enrollment Drive …way ahead!

Gandhi Nagar:

We perhaps understated the influence of chain reaction.

I dropped in to Nandini’s abode today and inquired with her mother about her studies.

Her mother couldn’t tell me much about her studies but she pointed out that she is regular to school. Nandini brought her notebook and showed me her English and Marathi exercises.

The one last thing which struck me the most was, when while leaving she pointed out that Kiran is no more coming to school. She tried convincing her but all in vane.

It was not an insignificant effort, it shows that how a chain reaction works. Of course it’s difficult without support of encouraging parents. After all Kiran is not as lucky as Nandini.

This also reminded me of our visit to Gandhi Nagar community with TMC-Hindi medium teacher Mr R.S. Yadav. When He was trying to convince and convey Kiran’s parents the importance of education, at that time Kajal’s mother (Kajal is a 12 year old bright girl from Hiranadani workers community) also joined Mr Yadav and gave the examples of her daughters who are regular to schools and getting better in education every year.

Perhaps examples like these can be of immense help in our upcoming campaigns.

Dharamveer Nagar:

In our last visit at Dharmveer Nagar migrant labour community with TMC-Marathi medium teacher Mrs Ahire, we listed 8 children for enrollment. One of them came to school same day with me to get her self enrolled. She entered in a school first time in her life to study.

I called up Mrs Ahire to inquire about these children and came to know that the whole migrant basti at Dharmveer Nagar has been wiped out. She pointed that only the girl came till the day before her hut was demolished by TMC.

Not even a single child from that community is coming to school any more.

Shanti Nagar(Kalwa):

On Friday 10^th Sep 2010, we visited Thane College and interacted management students there. We appealed them to join our volunteer group and contribute in our enrollment work at Shanti Nagar community. This was a very cognizant bunch. We hope that we they join us soon in our enrollment work at Shanti Nagar.

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