| CMS Site Visit Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The journey: We, Gopal da, my mother & I, started from Kolkata on Sept 18, 2001 at around 8:00 am. We took a taxi to the Babughat bus stop & took the bus to Basanti. It was a 3-hour journey. At Basanti we crossed the river in a motorboat & got into a van. After only few minutes we came across a crowd surrounding the local police station protesting about something. We had to get down from the van, walk past the agitation & get another van. After sometime we reached Shibganj, where Champa Mahila Society (CMS) operates. At CMS: [Detailed report after this general review of the 3 days & 2 nights at CMS] After arriving we 1st visited the Shibganj Primary school followed by lunch. Then we went to see the kitchen garden. Its turned out to be a general knowledge tour for us because every few seconds they would point to a plant & ask us to identify it. It was tough for someone growing up in a city especially when that plant had no fruit/vegetable on it! After that we discussed a lot of things about the Small Help Groups (SHG) CMS has formed in & around Basanti. (Unfortunately I forgot the names of the people who showed us around.) The SHG’s main targets are the families below poverty line. The groups identify the poorest ones among them who get help from CMS in terms of kitchen garden* & animal husbandry. Some of these projects are govt funded & some funded by other orgs like us. [These kitchen gardens* are funded by People for Progress in India (PPI) another non profit organization in Seattle area.] Animal husbandry works as follows: CMS gives each family a pair of goats/lambs (as the family wishes). The family takes care of them till they give birth to 2 more goats/lambs. Then they give back the original animals to CMS & the process continues. Similarly CMS also provide hens & a cock to these families & get them back later. They also explained the micro-credit process: Every month each woman puts in Rs. 11 in the SHG fund. Then Rs. 10 * no. of women in that group is saved with CMS & the remaining Rs. 1’s are kept with the group. This serves many purposes e.g. spending some of it on tea in one of their monthly meeting or compensating for some member of the group who could not pay the Rs. 11 that month. I saw the records they maintain. They also told us how these SHG’s have empowered these women. Now they scold the health worker if she does not bring enough immunization shots. Sometimes CMS also end up embarrassed because the women want something but CMS is unable to provide that many for everyone. It was also interesting to note that CMS’s effort in educating them on family planning was very effective even in the Muslim areas. The women there would go on their own & get the operation done quietly. Afterwards they of course had to face some difficulty from their families like the father in law refuse water from one of them. It seemed that what all I had heard/read about the positive impacts of SHG’s became a reality here. We went back to CMS after dark & discussed with Amol da & others, which NFE’s to visit the next day. (We also met a bundle of energy – Anu, Amol da’s younger son!) Next morning, Sept 19, 2001 we visited 3 NFE’s in the morning. Then we went to CMS hospital. It is next to Shibganj Primary. They have a operation theater there too. We saw a 32-week old premature baby there. Since they had no electricity (leave alone incubator) the nurses had to wrap blankets around a kerosene lamp to warm it & then put it on the baby. But in spite of all their effort we heard later in the evening that the baby did not survive. It was sad because if they had proper equipments the baby would have survived. The doctor had warned the mother to take rest but she did not & it resulted in an early delivery. Earlier people use to go far for simple surgeries but now all those are done here at a much lesser cost. There is a govt hospital near by but that just exists. The doctors & other stuff are not regular at all. The doctor according to CMS is very dedicated & his strong points are surgery, orthopedics & gynecology. We met him later in the evening. He wants to stay here rather than go to a city & practice there. Another good thing about him is that he does not prescribe a lot of medication unnecessarily, so it is more cost effective for the patients. We also heard about the legendary surgery by the doctor. There was a young girl with defective feet. So she had to walk on her toes. After 2 surgeries (one on each foot) the doctor corrected the defects & now the girl can walk normally like us. It made a big difference in her life. (We met her in the evening.) In addition this incident created a lot of trust for the doctor among the local people. Then we went to 2 more NFE’s after lunch & attended a SHG meeting in the 2nd one. On our way back we saw the festivity of the area. We already had some glimpses of local sports e.g. a race to catch a duck in the pond. This time we saw the ‘pandels’ & the electric lights & mechanized idols of Gods & Goddesses that could move. At CMS we went to the orphanage, where the boys were ready to welcome us once more. We got few bouquets. Amol da gave a speech & asked both my mom & me to say something. Then they sang, said rhymes in a group with one leading in the middle, solo poem recital & drill with 2 popular patriotic songs. Some of the performances were repetitions for us because we some them at some of the NFE’s or at Shibganj Primary already. Then I went to chat with the boys. After dinner with as usual had some discussion about various things. I was quite shocked to see the situation in some NFE’s in terms of zero infrastructures. CMS had send us a proposal for starting a school on their own. It turned out there were 2 possibilities:
So I decided to visit that place even for ½ hour. Next morning, Sept 20, 2001 we went to there in an auto rickshaw. It was quite far. There was no school, no building for miles. Very few huts scattered here & there. The refugees from Bangladesh were settled at this place. They catch very young fish from the river & sell them at the market. They are very poor. If they can do pisci-culture, they will be economically much more better off. But the main hurdle is getting land for this. The cost of land is a lot & they do not have that much money. Surprisingly though in the same area there are pisci-culture farms run by big companies like Chandan Bose’s (Jyoti Bose – former chief minister of West Bengal) company. From there we went to the end of the island & also of human habitat. On our way we could clearly make out how far the water rises during tide since half of every tree, bush or shrub was covered with mud or had a different color. We went to a ‘ghat’ at the bank of the river. Gopal da told us that the forest on the other side of the river is where the Royal Bengal tigers live. Sometimes they cross the river & attack the people living here. Shibganj Primary School: This is the 1st thing we saw at CMS. The school is just beside CMS main building & Amol da’s house. They greeted us warmly with bouquets of flowers & leaves made by the children. We 1st had a chat with the teachers in the presence of few from CMS in the school office. Then went from classroom to classroom. The kids were very smart & after a little hesitation they were pretty fwd. They said rhymes, sang songs & in one class showed as a dance too! The classes were very crowded. There were hardly any high bench or table for them. Most of the orphanage boys go to this primary school.
Needs of Shibganj Primary: Playground: The paddy field will be converted. So land is there. According to the teachers, the soil won’t cost anything; it’ll be only the labor & transportation. 2 classrooms: There is a wall along one end of the field. They want to build two classrooms utilizing the wall as one side of the rooms. Then class I will be split into 2 sections. 2 extra teachers: There are people who can teach. Right now the teacher student ratio is 4:411, worse than 1:100! I asked them if govt would create any trouble if CMS puts some teachers there. But they said govt won’t pay any attention & that’s not a problem. They all (the teachers & CMS) seemed pretty sick & tired of the govt. According to them the free textbooks get spoilt in go-downs but didn’t get distributed. The govt would rather let the books get spoilt that take the effort to distribute them! Drinking water: They don’t have any source of drinking water in the school. There is a tube-well outside. But it is public & there is a lot of demand on that too. I suggested an earthen pot full of water. But they didn’t think it would be a good solution because the children might break the pot any time.
The Non Formal Education (NFE) Centers: 1st of all, in Sunderban & many parts of West Bengal, non-formal education means education for the kids below the level of class I. It has nothing to do with child labor. On the other hand these NFE centers try to put kids back into mainstream education. At many NFE’s run by CMS children of class I-III come because the roads to the primary schools are so bad that parents don’t let the kids use those routes till they are older. Two very enthusiastic & dedicated volunteers – Arafat Sardar & Chandra Shekhar Bal – have taken up the responsibility of all the NFE centers. When Shanmuga visited CMS in March 2001, he had suggested some teachers’ training. CMS arranged for that in late April/early May. The training was given by Vikramshila**. The benefits were very clear when I visited in late Sept. All the NFE centers had the proper charts & they were using the typical Montessori procedures like “one ten & one = eleven”, only the language was Bengali. [Vikramshila** is a teacher-training center mainly for pre-primary & primary. They are doing a very good work of spreading many good things along with Montessori training in rural parts of West Bengal. The people involved are very experienced teachers.] There were 10 NFE centers running during the site visit. CMS gave all the info on each of them, viz location, how far, how long will it take to go, when are the classes held (morning or afternoon), which ones were visited by Shanmuga & Siva & then gave me full freedom to choose which ones I want to go. There were 2 on a different island called Goshaba, really far off & it would take the whole day to visit each. So keeping those 2 aside I chose 5 so that the ones that had not been visited yet get covered this time. Adibashi para: We went there around 7:30-8:00 in the morning on 19 Sept. The students were really small kids. They love playing & saying rhymes. The kids did some pairing, took part in some games (one in particular that Shanmuga taught them). My mother taught them a very simple number game & told them a story on their request. Classes are held under the sky. If it rains they move to a ‘dawoa’ nearby. But there, they don’t have enough light. The mothers requested us for some tiffin, I told them it would be served in a month or 2. Earlier they never use to send the kids to school, but now they do. This NFE center has one/two teachers. They treated us with sweets. Shibganj Majher para: After quite a bit of walk we reached this NFE center around 9:00 am. The road was really very bad at places. Classes held in a ‘dawoa’ of someone’s home. It was very crowded for the kids. Also the 2 older children in that household find it difficult to study when the school is on. Slightly older kids know the multiplication tables & are very smart. They also showed us some of their games. I showed them some basic patterns in math. The mothers demanded tiffin for the kids & a structure, so that the kids wouldn’t have to be confined at the narrow ‘dawoa’. I was amazed at their organized team & the fact that they were demanding instead of requesting or begging – “by the power of SHG”! They told us that they would give some land for the center & we (CMS & Asha) should make some shade at least. They need at least a thatched roof. Kids up to classes III-IV. The roads are bad. So the kids can’t go to Primary/high School until they are a little older. This center has one teacher. They treated us with green coconuts. Ranigar: We reached this 3rd NFE center around 10:00 in a van. This one has a pacca structure & a toilet. A single teacher runs this center & it is also up to class III. The kids are smart. They know the multiplication tables. They also are good in rhymes & without any prompting from the teacher. One of the kids’ lead & the others followed & it was not necessarily the older kids that lead! The younger ones told a story quite well. Here we were treated with cucumber & more green coconuts. Thank god a toilet was there! Kalidanga: We went to this place in the afternoon again in a van. There is a pacca structure with 2 rooms but no toilet. The roof of this center is a tin shade, which gets very hot. They have lots of materials & books. Primary kids are taught addition, subtraction, multiplication & division separately. There were almost 100 kids. They (CMS & the local people) want to split it into 2 centers. They have 2 teachers now but need one more. This is in the Muslim area & there is high demand for the NFE center. Even if the teachers tell the parents not to send their kids to school during the rainy days when the road become really bad, still all the kids turn up. The kids told us rhymes & story. Dakkhin Mokambariya: The roof under which classes used to be held has been broken after a storm. So now the center is held at someone’s kitchen ‘dawoa’. They desperately need a space for the center, which caters to 40 kids. They greeted us with bouquet & arati etc. These kids also said rhymes together with one in the middle leading. TarunTirtha*** girls joined for a drill with a well-known song. Then 2 boys enacted a rhyme by Sukumar Roy with full make-up. They are ex-NFE kids. They have got books. One read from the book, but appeared to me that he mugged that part. Kids did pairing, said rhymes. They want one more teacher & want to split into 2 centers. Amol da gave a speech at the end. We also attended a SHG meeting after that. There we all had another round of green coconut. [Tarun Tirtha*** is the program for slightly older kids. In this program the kids take part in a lot of co-curricular activities, viz. song, dance, drill, sports & also go to attend various ‘mela’s & camps. It’s in one of those camps where they picked up drill with popular patriotic songs] Needs of NFE’s: Structure: Some of the NFE’s don’t have any structure at all & are held under open sky or in someone’s ‘dawoa’, which are very congested & dark. So later in the night, I discussed this with Amol da & asked him to send us a proposal to make some shades for these centers out of bamboo & straw, with some kind of curtains that can be rolled down to prevent rain. We discussed the material for the curtain, which should prevent rain but not light. When I went there 10 NFE’s were running. [* I went to these.]
Toilets: Though nobody mentioned it I think there is a need for toilets in the centers. But we had no discussion on this issue. This should be taken up by whoever visits them next. Drinking water: Also I did not see any drinking water facility at any. That’s something to look into in the next site visit. Teachers: Amol da did not mention how some of the centers were simply overflowing with kids till we actually saw them. There are at least 2 centers, which should be split into 2. In the SHG meeting we attended, when this overcrowding issue came up, Amol da took that opportunity to stress the importance of family planning. NFE ® Primary/high School: When the kids graduate from the NFE’s to the Primary/high schools CMS still monitors the kids’ progress – whether they are attending, if not what’s the reason for not attending & what can be done as a remedy. After the enjoyable NFE part the kids often find the traditional primary school dull (same problem exists in Kolkata also!). So Amol da has a plan to train the primary teachers with the help of Swanirbhar (another Asha project). He has already discussed this with Swanirbhar’s Sujit Sinha. They are going to arrange for this training one/two years later. Orphanage: Sunderban is a mono crop area & sometimes even that does not reach home due some natural disaster or other. So to supplement their income people go to the forest to get firewood, honey or to the river to catch fish, prawn or very young fish/prawn. Then they get attacked by the Royal Bengal tiger in the forest or the crocodiles in the river. Sometimes they get injured when part of the riverbank collapses on them. For this reason there is a growing number of orphans in this area. The orphanage is a 4-storied hostel. The floor only has a huge hall, which is used for various training (e.g. the Vikramshila one) & programs. The boys live in the 1st 3 floors. The doctor also lives in one of the rooms. In each room there are about 5/6 boys. The younger ones go to Shibganj Primary School & the older ones to the near by high school. In the hostel they study together. Since there is no electricity they use kerosene lamps, unless the generator is on. They clean their rooms & wash their clothes themselves. They also learn song, dance etc. Dance is on Sundays. There is a playground in front of the building but that needs to be developed. CMS has a big kitchen garden* & few ponds from which they get fresh vegetable & fish for the orphanage boys’ meals. The main ideas are to minimize cost by buying from the market & give them fresh vegetables. The boys have groups & each group by rotation takes part in taking care of the kitchen garden, catching fish from the pond & cleaning their hostel. Their daily routine is as follows: 5:30-6:00 – wake up call; have some overnight soaked ‘chana’ followed by study hours 9:00 – breakfast & school 12:00 – lunch break Evening – group activities/play After dark – study under kerosene lamps I think they are having a wonderful experience in observing how all these plants are growing up & learning about them by doing it themselves. They seemed to be a delightful bunch – very friendly, eager to learn new things. They didn’t want to let go of us. But had to after some time because exams were coming up & they had to study. They took all my contact info (except the email id) & promised to write. Next day when we were on our way back some of them caught us & mentioned that I did not take their photo. I told them I had run out of films & asked them to send me their drawings & paintings. (Later Amol da sent us 2 photos of the orphanage kids.) [This kitchen garden* is also funded by PPI.] How CMS started: This group started when some children approached them & wanted to learn the alphabets. Once they started gradually realized that they have to involve the mothers also. Then the SHG & other related activities started. At 1st the village women won’t talk to anybody & would remain behind the ‘ghomta’ (ghunghat). But now they have started demanding better ovens, shade/proper venue for the NFE centers, scolding the health care worker if she brings less doses of pulse polio. Direction to CMS: 1. Take a bus to Basanti from Babughat. It takes around 3 hours to reach Basanti. 2. Cross the river in a motorboat. 3. Take a van to Shibganj. |
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