Holding on to hope

At Ananda Bharathi, the young girl students from underprivileged background enjoy the joys of education and face a future that promises hope.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: The girls put together a collage of facts about the states of India.

IT IS many days past the fifteenth of August, and we are back to our normal routines, having pushed into the far recesses of our minds thoughts of national pride, identity and the hard-won privileges of freedom. But now and then from the pages of the newspaper come reminders that freedom is a relative state, whether seen in political, economic, social or cultural terms, and some of us have more of it than others. The State Government's "Chaduvula Panduga'' brought into focus one of those areas where some of us have more choice, and more access, than others -- basic education.

All through the "education festival'' we read about children being pulled off the streets and into schools. Some schools even put up banners announcing, "Admissions extended due to Chaduvula Panduga!'' In some corners of the city, however, the idea of making education available to those who are otherwise unable to access this "free and compulsory'' privilege (sorry, read "right'') has for long been a practice. Many small and not-so-small groups and individuals have been quietly and steadily trying to draw children into the fold of literacy and numeracy, helping them become truly participating members of the our democracy.

One such effort, now nearly two decades old, is Ananda Bharathi, a small school for girls from underprivileged backgrounds run by Janaki Iyer and a band of committed helpers, located in Tarnaka. Funded mainly by donations from interested individuals and a corpus built with the help of CRY and a few other donors agencies, Ananda Bharathi runs almost entirely on Janaki's energy and that of her two full time associates, one of whom gave up a job with a computer company to volunteer at the school. The school does not aim to take children out of the workforce. Instead, Janaki and her associates recognise the everyday realities of these children -- most of them must either work to supplement a meagre family income, or they must stay home to care for younger siblings while their parents go out to work. Some of the girls have had to sacrifice school so that a younger brother could go instead. They are all, without exception, first generation literates. In order to allow these children to build learning into the constraints of their lives, the school runs from 2 to 5 in the afternoon.

For those few hours everyday, the school is a refuge, a haven, and a place where the girls learn the meaning of self, of the written word, and something of the wider world outside their straitened circumstances. Sitting in eager clutches around Janaki, whom they all call "akka'', or working with Madhavi or Anuradha, two other "akkas'', what the group of 31 girls learn goes far beyond the three R's. The youngest, who has just joined Ananda Bharathi, is just, 5, while the oldest, at 16, has been in school for just a year and a half. Going to school for each one of them is not a matter of routine - they have had to convince parents and pacify employers so that they can get there on time, and they value every moment of it. "After a few lessons here some of them are awed by the realisation that there is so much they do not know,'' says Janaki. "That makes them really yearn for more.'' The group use a mix of materials and methods to make learning as accessible as possible to the girls. The aim is to give them the opportunity to go on to formal schooling and may be even college at some point, so that they can build a better future for themselves. Some of the girls have in fact gone on to the social welfare hostels and onto college. Ruthamma, a former Ananda Bharathi student, is now being coached for the IIT entrance in a government residential college.

The lessons are mainly done in Telugu, although there is also some English teaching, particularly for those who are being prepared to appear privately for the VII std board examination. "Many of them also expressed an interest in learning Hindi, so we have started that as well -- at their request,'' says Janaki. Three of the children recently passed the Hindi prathama exam.

Every Independence Day and Republic Day, the Ananda Bharathi team gets the girls involved in learning about the meaning of democracy, and the importance of education and literacy in today's world. While this may, in the telling, seem no different from what all "mainstream'' schools do, what makes it special is that these children are only now discovering what political independence and sovereignty could mean in their own lives. And it becomes even more special because they have the opportunity to present their learning -- which they hold preciously in the bits of paper clutched close -- to an audience.

BEYOND LETTERS: Ananda Bharathi spells a dream..

This year, the girls put together a collage of facts about the states of India, all 28 of them, old and new. As each one came up and presented what they had learned, the nervousness was evident, as was the pride. Another group stood in line to recite Safdar Hashmi's poem, Kitaben, and they all together then sang a Telugu translation of a popular Hindi song, Tu zinda hai to zindagi ke jeet mein yakeen kar, agar kahin hai swarg to utar la zamin par.

``What they learn for the Independence Day programme does not stop with their performance -- it stimulates their curiosity and interest so much that they continue to talk about it for many days after,'' says Janaki. Discussing themes like secularism and religious tolerance, or unravelling the implications of Safdar Hashmi's simple song, or talking about the importance of hygiene in health, the girls begin to explore worlds that had hitherto been closed to them.

As the Independence Day programme at Ananda Bharathi draws to a close, one sees on the faces of these young girls, the promise and the possibility of a future that maybe, just maybe, holds more happiness, comfort, and opportunity. They have learned not just to read the writing on the wall, but to draw from it meaning for their own lives.

USHA RAMAN

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