Site
visit report to Deenabandhu (Vivekananda Foundation), Chamarajanagar, Mysore
http://www.ashanet.org/mit/Public/www/Projects/viveka/viveka-govt-school.html
by Ananth Chikkatur, Asha-MIT
(December 13, 2001)
I visited the Deenabandhu
orphanage, which is the site of the Asha-Viveka Yojane (AVY). AVY is part of
the Vivekananda Foundation (VF) ( http://www.ashanet.org/mit/Public/www/Projects/viveka/viveka.html.1). Asha-MIT ($3000) and Asha-Madison ($1200)
have been funding the Asha-Viveka Yojane (AVY) for about one year (December
2001). The money has been used to fund the salaries of seven social workers,
who work with the administration and teachers in 52 gov’t schools (7-8 schools
per social worker). They also work with the local zilla panchayat to get
renovations and materials needed in the schools. In effect, Asha and
Vivekananda Foundation have adopted these 52 schools from the gov’t. The salary
for each social worker is Rs. 1200 per month + Rs. 150 travel costs). Our money
is also used to buy equipment (science, books, sports), and for conducting
workshops.
The initial proposal had
called for 50 social workers to reach out more than 300+ schools in the dist.
and was also sent out as a 2001 WAH project, but it was rejected (http://www.ashanet.org/mit/Public/www/Projects/viveka/viveka-orig-prop.html).
The last site visit to this project was in Sept. 2001 by Dr. Annamalai, whose
report is at http://www.ashanet.org/mit/Public/www/Projects/viveka/sitevisit-1.html
I visited Deenabandhu on
December 13, 2001. It was organized by Mr. Jayaram, who is the IHDUA’s2
coordinator. I was to visit the IHDUA’s programs in the Gundlupet area after my
visit with Mr. Jayadev. However, my visit to the schools adopted by AVY and
discussions with social workers took longer than expected and hence I was not
able to visit IHDUA projects on that day. I arrived from Bangalore taking the
early morning train to Mysore with Ms. Viji Kannan (IHDUA). I visited Dr.
Ajaikumar’s3 diagnostic center in Mysore. Jayaram, myself, and a
driver drove out to Chamarajanagar (CN) in a Tata Sumo from this center. We
reached CN by around 1 pm after about 1.5 hours of driving from Mysore. After
some asking around, we were able to find the Deenabandhu orphanage. Jayadev and
the social workers were actually waiting for me to have lunch with them. A
simple sit-down lunch was organized similar to the one described by Dr.
Annamalai in his report. After lunch, we discussed the project and how
effective the school adoption had been. The seven soc. workers had come to the
orphanage just for my visit. Typically, they are out at the schools. So, my
visit had essentially disrupted their work. After about an hour discussion, we
left in a jeep that Jayadev had gotten from the VF to two schools. It was
around 3 pm, so we only visited two schools near the Chamarajanagar town. It
was clear to me afterwards that those schools were among the two better schools
in the area. I told Jayadev of this; he agreed. I suggested that during my next
visit, I would like to get a fairer picture of the schools and visit some of
the faraway schools which he told me were worse.
I also asked Jayadev about
the orphanage. It seems that about 35 students stay in it, ages ranging from 1st
std. to 2nd year PUC. The older kids help out with some of the
poster making and organizing of events, etc. I talked to a few of the younger
kids who were hanging out near the Tata Sumo. They were all very curious about
me and asked me questions as where I was from, what I was doing here, etc. It
was nice to see that they were bold and were demanding to know what I was doing
there in their home.
The social workers were
Nemiraja, Laxamma, Mahesh Kumar, Balanna, Mahendra, Mahadevaswami and Suresh
Kumar (M.P.Ed). The key event to happen around this time was the sports meet,
which the AVY was to organize for 200 children. Suresh, who has Masters degree
in phys. ed. described this to me in detail. In fact, as an Asha volunteer, I
was asked to sign a few certificates that would be handed out the kids4.
The biggest complaints that
the teachers heard from the schools were lack of toilets and compounds. In
fact, Jayadev and the social workers have been lobbying the zilla panchayat to
construct these compounds around the school. Compounds are needed to prevent
unwanted people from playing cards, etc. in school premises, and animals (cows)
from coming into the school area, disrupting the classes, and also eating the
kids’ garden. The gov’t is supposed to build a compound for the schools, but typically,
they have built only half the compound (L shaped). These half-built compounds
are utterly useless. I saw one of these L-compounds in one of the schools I
visited. Toilets and drinking water are another key resource missing in the
schools and gov’t is supposed to fund them, but they don’t. This especially impacts the women teachers,
who need to go ask local people to use their toilets! Regarding water, it was
amazing to see one school, where I visited, with a tank and a tap, but no water connection! The water
connection was not their problem, just the putting the tank was! The gov’t
inefficiency and bureaucracy was striking here.
The AVY also provides the
schools with wastebaskets and posters to classrooms describing various
environmental and hygienic concepts. I saw these posters and wastebaskets in
the schools. Regarding the posters in the classrooms, they were all hanging
rather high on the walls. Given that the classrooms were actually quite dark
since they had only one or two windows, it was almost difficult to see the
posters well. I asked the teachers why they were kept so high, to which their
reply was that the kids destroy the posters. This is an interesting dilemma,
while the posters should not be destroyed; unless they are at the kids
eye-level it will be useless. I suggested that if the posters were destroyed,
the class should be held responsible for making another poster with the
teacher; this might give them a chance to express their creativity. When asked
about the wastebaskets, the head master had it in his room! Jayadev wants to
instill in the kids a sense of responsibility for keeping their school clean.
The idea is that the kids must not throw things around the school, but put in a
wastebasket. However, a wastebasket in the headmaster’s office would not be
used by the kids…but by the headmaster alone (if at all)! I suggested that it
be moved outside his office, rather than inside.
The two schools I visited had about 5-6 pukka classrooms. There was no problem
with the infrastructure in terms of blackboard, etc. However, all of the kids
sat on the floor. The lighting in all of the classrooms was terrible. It was
very dark, especially in contrast to the bright sun outside. Perhaps better
roofing architecture is needed. It was interesting to note that every school
had a large field where the kids are supposed to play. But, it is hard to
imagine playing there in the hot sun. When I asked about why they do not have
trees to provide shade, I was told that it is a gov’t rule to have a large open
space for kids. Clearly I would not want to have kids running around in that
hot sun. Perhaps, it is time this gov’t rule be modified to atleast have shady
trees around the open space for playgrounds.
In both of these schools, the
headmasters and the teachers were very happy to have the social workers. Their
presence improved their life a bit. Social workers connect the school with the
zilla panchayat and they work to better the schools. The teachers know this and
are happy that some attention is being given to them. In fact, while I was
talking with the headmaster, I noticed that one of the women teachers was
talking to Laxamma. Although I was not privy to their conversation, it was clear
from her behavior that the teacher had a friendly relationship with Laxamma.
After returning to
Deenabandhu, I talked with the social workers a bit. I learned that they travel
mainly by buses to their schools. They visit about 7-8 schools, about twice a
week. During a break (when Jayadev was busy), the soc. workers expressed their
concern about what to do at the end of the school year since they would be out
of a job. Jayadev apparently did not want to pay them during the summer and
wanted them to find a job for 3 months and then come back. They told me that it
was not easy to find a quick job for 3 months and then come back. While they
were all dedicated, they needed the money to survive. They also requested that
I talk to Jayadev about increasing their salary from Rs.1200 to Rs. 1600 p.m.
Apparently Rs. 1600 was promised initially. In addition, they all felt that the
travel allowance of Rs. 150 was too small and requested me to raise it Rs. 300.
I felt that the salary increase was important especially because human
resources are more important here. Losing the social workers implies training
another one, which wastes more time and resources. However, Asha-MIT must only
do this working with Jayadev. We, as an outside org., do not know all of the
details and the leadership of Jayadev must be maintained. We can only suggest
to him that he might want to consider a raise. In fact, the soc. workers
suggested that they would be willing to take a pay cut and work on data
collection or getting trained during the summer months rather than not working
at all.
Finally, just before we left,
we visited the construction of a new school that Jayadev is working on. The
school is separate from the AVY, and is partially being funded by Asha-Seattle
(?). The construction is almost complete and Jayadev requested that a good word
be put into Asha-Seattle. The school had a very different architecture from the
usual four wall classrooms and it seemed to be almost in the finishing stages,
requiring only plastering and carpentry. It was getting dark by then, and
Jayaram and I took leave of Jayadev and social workers and headed back to
Mysore.
Analysis and suggestions for future visits:
· The key thing that I learned in this visit was that
the teachers and social workers have a good working relationship. The soc.
workers have a higher degree than most teachers and hence they are generally
well qualified and are respected by the teachers.
· We need to visit more schools away from the
Chamrajanagar city to get a better idea of what further needs are there.
· Regarding the schools, the infrastructure in terms of
the walls, toilets and water connections need to be provided by the gov’t. In
addition, there are some policy level issues such as lighting, trees, etc. that
must be developed with the gov’t.
· It’s very important to retain the social workers since
they have developed skills and have a good rapport with the teachers. These
human resources are more important than any financial help (of course they are
not independent).
· The Asha-MIT/Madison project stewards must work with
Mr. Jayadev on increasing the teacher’s salaries and jobs/training for them
during the summer months. They should be able to use the resources at Dr.
Sudharshan’s project and SVYM for training.
· We need to provide contacts between Jayadev and other
educational resource centers in the area such as SVYM, Suvidya, Sutradar, etc.
___________________________________________________________________
1 Although each of the individual organizations are
functioning well, it remains to be seen how well the orgs. will coordinate with
each other in the foundation.
2 IHDUA – International
Human Development and Upliftment Academy – An organization that Asha-MIT has
now funded. They run a school in Mullur in the Gundlupet Taluk and have
self-help groups, etc.
3 For info on Dr. Ajaikumar see: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asha-boston/message/247
4 Although I resisted at
first, it is interesting to note that my signature seemed very important to
them. Perhaps more as someone from the US, rather than any Asha volunteer.
I was gifted with some
beautiful flowers by a social worker
Near the blackboard from L to
R:
Myself, classroom teacher,
Mr. Jayadev, social worker and Laxamma.