Site Visit report for Street to School in Aug-Sep 2003
This year my visit to the above project run by Tomorrow’s Foundation (TF) was again in many parts. Updates are highlighted. Observations & overall impression at the end.

Aug 28, Thursday
Aug 29, Friday
Sep 1, Monday
Sep 4, Thursday
Sep 5, Friday
Sep 18, Thursday
Sep 19, Friday
Oct 1, Wednesday

Aug 28, Thursday:
After landing on Wednesday, I dropped in on Thursday mainly to give the National Geographic magazines. Interestingly Arup da (who comes there once in 6 months usually) was also present & greeted with a warm hug. Mamoni & Ashis da were also glad to see me. After few "How-are-you"s & "How-long-are-you-here"s we sat down for meditation led by Arup da. Then Ashis da & I sat down & listed many agenda items between TF & me (including a belated treat from Tanusree & him; they have married recently). I also got one hard copy of their annual report. Ananda, Anjali (Asha Kolkata) & Vallabh were supposed to meet me there. They arrived one hour later during which I saw the daily functioning of TF once again. Then we went to TFCP to see the different things they have started manufacturing. These included some very good files & other desktop items & the cards of course. They have started some printing activities there.

Top

Aug 29, Friday:
This evening I went to see their circus project. A bunch of French youths came in a cultural exchange program & taught the children various things including some very good juggling. They put together a show called "Circus" which was enjoyed very much by the local people. Some local children stood atop an ambassador car & whistled loudly thru out the program. The French people took over the show towards the end with some children performing side by side. It was pretty impressive. I also got the chance to ask Ashis da regarding the schooling of children placed in different homes. He mentioned that most homes have a school also. The remaining have schools within few minutes of walking distance.

Top

Sep 1, Friday:
Today 3 things happened:
  1. A 3+ yr old I know was enrolled in TF program. He (the young one) has joined the Pre-Primary (PP) class in the evenings only. That will extend to morning classes also from the next academic year.


  2. I spent hours with the open school candidates (4 girls & later 2 boys joined in) telling them different ways of studying, preparing for exams & how to write exams in more efficiently. I also gave them some HW & few days later heard that they are doing it. It was very encouraging to see how this proposal of working with these children was welcomed by TF. They had sent me one set of their books few days ago & I prepared Geography, Life & Physical sciences & a little bit of Math over the weekend. I was very happy to see the way course material was presented in the books. That really reduced my job a lot. The presentation was very crisp. There were lots of charts & tables. The presentation was best in Life science, then in Geography. Physical science was not that great. I mainly concentrated on how to represent the material better & more colorfully in different types of charts. That way when will make the charts & see them around all the time, the material will easily enter their minds thru various sources - hands, eyes, interaction among them. I did 2 types of charts with their help. TF provided us with chart-papers, sketch pens & pastels. I have suggested that they collect old wall calendars & use the back side (which is typically white) to make such charts. This way they get more familiarized with the course material since they discuss & explore it further. Then I gave them some HW, where they are supposed to make similar charts for other things. I also looked at there tests & suggested how they can write answers very clearly (in an examiner friendly way) & in a short time. I also gave small examples as to why we need to learn these things & how to connect things from different subjects: between Physical science & Geography, Life science & Chemistry etc. We will have another session to cover Geography & Math.


  3. Ashis da & I visited the plot for Half Way Home (HWH). It took us 30 min to go by taxi & around the same time to come back by bus. There's a plan of to build a bridge by the govt. Once that happens it'll take much shorter time. The area is developing - many houses are on their way to completion. There's a large pond nearby. There will be a road stretching from near the HWH to the water body. That will ensure some clear passage for air.

Top

Sep 4, Thursday:
Riki, an Italian friend of TF, has made the plan of HWH. He presented that today. I was unable to attend due to some health problems. In the evening I went to the DTMS, where the evening classes are held.

They had a health awareness camp with all the teachers, children & their parents from 3:00 - 4:00/4:30 pm. So the evening classes ended one hour earlier. When I entered it was break & transition time from the camp to the regular evening classes. Many of the children knows me now & greeted. Fortunately this time I also remembered some of their names. 2 of them invited me to their Teachers' Day program the next day. Then they went from class to class to invite all the teachers. Some teachers jokingly complained about these late invitation! As usual this session started with the children (i) forming lines in the open space, (ii) doing some free hand exercises, (iii) singing one patriotic song followed by (iv) some quiet time with eyes closed & finally (v) taking their tiffin on the way to their respective classes.

I had brought some teaching & learning (TL) material for the junior classes. The jigsaw went to Olivia (teacher of class I) & the rest - (i) action flash cards & (ii) addition jigsaws - I showed to Jaya (teacher of PP). She (Jaya) was delighted with to see such things. So I'll make some samples & give them to her.

Once Mamoni, Ashis da & Kasturi di came I showed them pictures of Asha 12 etc. They saw Venkata (Asha LA - project coord). I had some questions regarding their budget & funding. In their annual report there was one item as "donation" but it did not mention how much is from Asha, how much from elsewhere etc. They told me the technical difficulty in publishing that. They are going to give me a break up later. I also informed them (finally) that we have been successful in raising the amount for HWH. Kasturi di (& another boy) mentioned that the HW is getting done at the open school.

Then we waited for my cousins & sister-in-law (who is good in computers). It was a pleasant surprise to see that Mamoni knew my cousin since they live close by. TF was glad to get someone good with computers. They are going to start computer literacy classes as soon as they get permission from the govt. They have 20 computers ready. It'll be different things for children of different ages starting with those in PP. The idea is to get them familiarized with computers thru simple educational & fun games & as they grow up teach them some basic things & later some packages. Undoubtedly this will give these children extra edge in finding jobs later. I also mentioned another friend of mine who creates soft wares suitable for these children at a very low cost using material familiar to the target group. We all agreed that's much better than buying soft wares which might cost more & are culturally unfamiliar to these children.

My cousins & sister-in-law also knew a family (single mother, father has expired, several siblings) who needed some help. So there was some discussion on what to do & how to do about the future of 2 children - (i) a 6 yr old boy & (ii) his youngest sister, around 11 yrs old. Ashis da is going to follow up on the later & everyone will be in touch with each other.

Top

Sep 5, Friday:
Today is Teacher's Day. But before attending the program at DTMS I went to TFCP to place order for 300 cards & take a look at their complete product list. I'm planning to take at least one sample of each product & take pictures of all. That way we can include these in an online catalog with pictures & dimensions & people/chapters can order from there. They make waste paper basket & different types of diaries, photo frame, albums, phone/address books, pen stand, lamp shade etc. Most of the item can be folded flat, hence easy to pack. They also have some coasters & table mats.

After that I saw the hard copies of the HWH plan & gave some further suggestion on how to furnish so that space is utilized better. It seems that TF had not estimated certain costs related to govt permits etc. These have increased the expense of building the home. I suggested that they prepare an updated spreadsheets with these additional costs & sent it to us (Asha). Mamoni (as usual) asked me to help draft that email.

After that it was time for the Teacher's Day program. This is year the usual room (where these programs are held) is under repair. So the program had to be staged in the open space inside the school premises. So to minimize the cost of halogen light they had to cut it short to less than an hour. They greeted all the teachers (& me) with a rose, a toffee & a pen. The program started very much on time. They (older children) had every body seated & ready. The program included 1 song, 2 rhymes, 4 dances followed by some juggling (they recently learnt in 10 days from the French students in a cultural exchange program). Some of the dances were very well choreographed & well-presented despite the small stage space. The juggling was also very good. It was interesting to see few puppets nodding their heads over the backdrop! There was a BIG request to all the "didi"s (female teachers) to sing & more interestingly to the "dada"s (male teachers) to dance!! You can easily guess which one (request) was fulfilled! After the program we were also given some snacks.

Top

Sep 18, Thursday:
The open school children had done their HW very sincerely. Kasturi di later told me that they were told that this will carry some marks. They did some very good charts. There were 2 girls from CINI-Asha (another NGO, once an Asha project). They come here only for the education part. We discussed Geography. I pointed out that certain things have not been updated in the book & they should correct those. Then we briefly discussed some math. One of the girls was very good. So I encouraged her to explain how she approaches a problem to others. Later Kasturi di told me how this young lady is supporting her family by tutoring few children.

After that they had a physical science exam. So I chatted with Kasturi di for a while. She informed me about an on going exhibition on their products. I visited that & it was interesting to find people telling me about TF!

Top

Sep 19, Friday:
I dropped in on Mamoni's request. We prepared a spreadsheet mentioning the increased cost of the HWH. I also reminded them of the diff things they are supposed to give me in a floppy. This includes the diff forms & templates they use to keep track of every child & a break up of how much donation they get from where. I also showed them the pictures taken during the Circus & Teachers' Day. According to some, I've become their official photographer!!

Top

Oct 1, Wednesday:
Day out with the children to see Kolkata'r Durga Pujo - we went out in a bus with 46 children & few teachers/stuff. It brought back memories of my school & college days. We sang (with music - the back of the seats) our way to visit several pujo's. It was interesting to see how most of the management - making sure everyone is in a line, nobody is missing, getting water from tube wells at regular intervals - was handled by the older children. There was a small incidence when some of them had thrown some trash in the bus. The teachers made sure it was cleaned off before we started again. The weather was fine & so was timing. By the time people were feeling tired the crowd on the roads had increased also. 

Top

Observations & overall impression: