As discussed with Priti and Sonali, I decided to meet the Prerana group at KP (Kamathipura) centre. Got there close to 11. Since I had been there before, this time I had no difficulty in finding the place.

I walked in to introduce myself to a Prerana staff member, who subsequently informed Priti about my visit. Priti was in a meeting with few other volunteers from another NGO (who deals with children of similar background in Goa), Arz (http://arzindia.org/index.php). So instead of interrupting their meeting, I suggested that I would walk around. Things had not changed much. I could still see the notice board that had the names of the kids who were celebrating their birthday in the month of April. The wonderful drawings and messages of child rights were prominent and plastered across the walls. Few of the smaller kids were being helped by the NCC (night care centre) staff, and were being taken to a room where they were engaged in some small leisurely activities. The changes that I could see were - a notice board that had the names of the kids who were appearing for the 10th std exam as part of NIOS; a notice board that had the summer schedule for the month of April. And yes my favorite India map that had loud messages like "Child labor is wrong; Children have right to education".

By this time Sonali walked in, and thereafter she briefed me about the various changes. 

NIOS initiative was really good one. This primarily was to encourage the kids who had at some point lost their association with Prerana and had discontinued their studies, to complete their 10th std exam. The exam schedule and the exam centres were displayed on the board. In total there were 15 Prerana kids appearing for the exam - 6 from KP and 9 from FR (Falkland Road) centre. I think this is something that Prerana should continue on.

The summer activities for the senior kids included a lot of things - visits to the museum, science center, RBI and also Taj-Oberoi Hotels. The latter was a very good initiative since it was primarily to introduce the kids to various duties that were being done within these hotels.It would give a new perspective of various jobs - in addition to cooking and catering. This would serve as a career guidance for kids who wanted to pursue a career in this field.Since quite a few of these activities were for senior kids, Sonali pointed out to me the that for the little ones there were trips to the park, beach etc. Against each day on the calendar was also the menu item for that day. I was really impressed with the number of activities that Prerana was able to organize for the summer, thus keeping the kids excitement level high.

Now I noticed something...the suggestion box. So I probed Sonali a little on how effective it was. She showed me the register that had details of past suggestions. It was really impressive to see some of the complaints from the kids. It involved suggestions on - behavior of certain kids to recommendations for staff members. These suggestion box notes would be written manually into a Suggestion-Log file, for tracking purposes and would possibly to be discussed at Open House sessions. One thing I noticed within the Suggestion-Log file was that dates recorded were not consistent, and had large gaps. I suggested to Sonali that they write all dates when they open the Suggestion box within the file for recording purposes. Also some form of tracking system would be good, since currently most is done based on mental notes. Now for fun we opened the Suggestion box and took out 3-4 suggestion notes. I was really impressed to see the level of detail that the kids would write, which clearly shows their confidence and also expertise in writing. 

At this point the cook brought the food for tasting. So I became the official taster of the food for the day. Wonderful dal with rice and one dry sabji. I just remembered that I had not made the register entry on the food-tasting. Oh oh, will I be in trouble the next time?

The NCC staff was having their monthly meeting. So I sat through this. There were around 12 staff members meeting to discuss their issues. The main issues seemed to be regarding the schedules, conflict of responsibilities, inter-staff conflicts etc. 

After this Sonali took me and the Arz group for a community visit. This is something that the Prerana staff does on a regular basis twice a day. It helps them to make a constant note of new-comers, encourage the kids to come down for the summer activities, inform the mothers on the progress and also remind them of their responsibilities. I noticed that this time the number of small workshops had increased. I could see some bags, caps etc. being made. Hopefully the incidents of child labour has not increased!

Hereafter I met Preeti Iyer the new Project Director for the KP and FR centre.I also met the counselor, but I forget her name. After that I saw that Priti was updating the NCC staff on their tasks. She reminded them that this was a meeting just to remind them again of the do's and dont's of Prerana and their duties. It was good to see such meetings which helped re-iterate daily tasks. Priti put me in the spot by letting the staff know that I was part of Asha who in turn was a donor to Prerana!

After this I went through the files of a few kids. These files are called the case-tracking sheet. Every kid who has been with Prerana has a file of their own. It contains the face-sheet which included pictures and profile info, the medical information including the initial X-ray and other details. It also contains the weekly doctor and counselor reports. I could see some kids being given medication based on their anger and behavior. The report also brought to attention the next step for Prerana. For e.g. there were kids who were not interested in studies, or did not see the value and hence wanted to become a goon or something. I believe that the municipal school education that is being currently provided is not adequate for such children. There may be teacher inadequacies or inefficient teaching or disinterest on the part of the kids. I believe once these kids see the value prop of good education, and develop a further interest in education then they would not go back to their present life. Maybe Prerana can work with some other organization which is involved solely in education to find ways to capture the interest of the kids.

Subsequently we decided to visit the Pratishta center, which is almost an hour away near Kharghar. We went to the ITF centre where some of these kids were undergoing their training. The training was on catering. Kalpana showed us around the facility. Priti explained that these students were super excited about cooking. I could see a high level of confidence amongst these students when the teacher was asking questions. Kalpana explained a little about the recruitment process here. Each batch consists of arouns 25-30 kids. Only rescue kids are enrolled for this program. Once the judiciary passes the kid to Prerana, then these kids are brought along here. They are given a 1 week orientation during which they see the process, and make a decision on whether they want to join this training course or not. Each group undergoes this training for around 5.5 months. So far there have been around 8 batches that have come out of this training. ITF provides this training for free, and I could also see that the trainers were very sensitive to the feelings of these students. From here we went to the current home of these students and the remaining kids. This is a two storey building, which has been rented by Prerana. It is close to the municipal school, where around 20 kids attend regular schools...most of them in high school, except one little angel who belonged to primary. Priti informed us that one of the suggestion from this little one was that the elders used to pull her chubby cheeks quite often :)

Here we were treated to wonderful poha. I must admit that Prerana has one of the most amazing chefs, and I enjoy the food at every centre as much as I can. Since the girls had just come back, I did not go inside visiting the centre. However others made a quick visit. From here we decided to go to the new Prerana building, which is expected to house the Pratishta staff and the regular ESP and NCC kids. This building is a great facility. The rooms for the students and the kids look really big. There is enough place for the kids to play, the terrace is really big, a nice place that can be used for projection TV against a wall, rooms for tailoring and fashion designing etc. The ITC hostel is right next door. Priti informed us that there had earlier been a possibility for Prerana to take up the housekeeping of the hostel. However they decided against it, since the expenses seemed to be high and it would not break-even soon. Asha should probably discuss this with Prerana again and find if this can be a mode for self sustainence of this project. I think Priti too believes that the Pratishta unit will be self-sufficient very soon.

From here we dropped our Arz friends at the Kharghar stations and proceeded to the VT(Vashi-Turbhe) centre. At VT we met Manjula who has been with this centre for long. I found that there were around 25 kids there for the NCC, who were watching TV. I chit-chatted with the NCC staff whom I had met earlier at KP centre, and asked them about the number of kids and the rounds. The centre used to have 4 NCC staff, but 2 of them had quit just a week back. I did find the details in the staff register. They have in addition an activity teacher who comes during the day, and there was a teacher who helped the teaching at night. I went through the various registers, and found that they had in total around 20 boys and 15 girls. There were few little girls who were not entered formally into the register, since they were not consistently at the centre. While I was there one mom came by and dropped her 2 yr old girl. On average there were around 5 absentees every day, which is not too high. The municipal school is two blocks away. I looked up the activity register and found that the activities involved various sensitive topics - ranging from sex to sexuality. It is essential for these kids to be aware of such topics. Not all kids attend these activities, while only older kids are involved in this. I looked up this attendance register too. This centre seems to be under-staffed. Asha needs to work closely with Prerana staff here to understand the issues surrounding this area. This centre always faces the issue of being sidelined in comparison to the KP and FR centre. After this we bid goodbye, to a thousand byes from the kids.

Thus ended my trip to Prerana this year. 

Overall I believe this is one of those wonderful projects which Asha is associated with. The advantage is that Prerana works two-fold - closely with the government in defining the laws, with the support personnels such as police, remand jomes, judiciary etc. In addition they also have a good community presence, since they have been around for several years, which is essential for the parents and everyone to trust Prerana. However I think Asha's strong point is education and partners involved with education...be it in terms of methodology or non-formal methods. Prerana always finds it difficult to find tutors. There is also a need for these children to be made aware of the importance of education. These are areas which Asha should closely work with Prerana on. The Pratishta centre seems to be something that Prerana can sustain themselves and does not need any special attention from Asha. Prerana's funding sources for KP and FR may also dry out by next year. So it is essential for Asha to help Prerana find sources of funds...and if possible explore some method to become self-sustainable.
From an organization view, I think Prerana has reduced their dependency on Priti and Pravin by additionally recruiting the Project Director leaving them to help the organization grow into other areas.