Attendees: Madhu, Meena, Anshu, Ram, Venki, Anju!, Sandeep*, Kapil, Pankaj, Neehar, Vijay, Vinod, Jay, Ankita*, Mrunal* Sshristi Site visit [Anshu] --------------------------- - Sshristi is a project that provides education for migrant workers - Pankaj is the steward - Anshu did the site visit - First day was a suprise visit. Anshu called the project at 9 am to inform that he would like visit. He reached there at 10am - Photos from learning center were shown from the site visit Q: Are they still in the same place? A: No, now they have moved to rented place. They had a bus to transport children for the eralier location. Now this amt is used for rent. They also have a van for getting food, etc - they were planning to have teachers oreintation, so kids were off from noon. - Anshu attended the teachers' orientation - the striking thing about kids here is that are kids are very confident. - they made conversation with Anshu - most of them also speak English quite fluently - At class 4, they take the NIOS exam. Once they pass this exam, the children go to class 6 in govt school - the learning center acts as a bridge school C: the kids should be in age appropriate class as part of RTE. The law provides funds for teachers to give extra tutoring to these children so that they catch up on learning - Discussions about RTE law implementation in Delhi - Sshristi Jai Hind campus is in a slum area. This slum area is next to a big mall. The conditions of this area is quite bad. Not sure how teachers come here. Jai Hind center teaches the slum children in this area. - Sshristi also runs a computer center. - SV is supporting only Sshristi learning center. - Teacher's oientation happened in Ladli center. Ladli center is also loacted in good building - Teacher's orietation: - It was mentioned that Sshristi is not a school but a learning center. - This teachers' orinetation was also farewell for german volunteers - Radha Bandari, one of the staff, presented slides. Anshu quickly presented the slides. Anshu will upload the slides - They do annual fundraising. Children from Sshristi performed last year in this event. Q: What % of funds do we provide for Sshristi comes from us? A: Maybe 30-35% Q: Can we get the partner to raise part of the money that we raise? A: Yes, efforts are taken towards this. Last year they made good progress last year. Even this year, they will take the effort. (Last year they had the half marathon) Q: What steps do they take towards child's right awareness? A: Not much - 391 children in Sshristi learning centers - Jai Hind camp: 86 children (43 girls, 43 boys), 5 teachers - Sshristi learning center: 108 children (~ 69 boys and 36 girls), 5 teachers - Ladli: 197 children, 6 teachers - Achievemnets: - 17 students took NIOS exams - all students passed last year - additional staff has ben appointed - new computer centers have been opened. - Challenges: - lack of community participation - absenteeism/irregularity - Children's health, hygiene and education - coordination b/w staff - School provides milk and midday meal everyday - One of the other challenges is very hard to retain teachers C: Training teachers is a good thing to community because the partner will train the teachers to be better teachers. Better teachers will contribute to the community. C: Sshristi's focus is towards educating children, working towards qualified teachers is secondary. C: Training teachers and providing better teachers to the community need not be a negative thing for the partner esp when their vision is see a literate world. This vision to be successful needs trained teachers - More discussions on the same topic - We can bring this topic back to the chapter and also bring the site visit update back.