India

This project actually gets to the child and little money was put into the project.
Newindpress on Sunday

A lesson learned
Friday May 5 2006
Nandini Murali

At the morning assembly, a group of 20 girls and boys aged three to five years sing the prayer song joyfully. Once that is done, they get busy with their daily lessons. They chant nursery rhymes in Tamil and English and lisp their way through action songs. Revathi, their pre-school teacher, unfolds the numbers, alphabets and colours charts, all made using local low-cost materials.

Welcome to the community preschool run by the Deepam SHG (Self-Help Group) at Sengalinurodai in Ramanathapuram district. But for Deepam and Revathi many of these children would be left at home, with no one to take care of them, as their mothers set out to work in the fields.

Take four-year-old Shyla Rani, for instance. Until Revathi convinced her parents — tappers by profession — to send Shyla and her siblings to school, she spent her day taking care of her two younger brothers, one of whom was only two years old. Shyla’s elder sister would take care of the housekeeping. Only after repeated reassurance from Revathi that their children would be well looked after did the parents agree to send them to school.

Child-centered, activity-based learning is the hallmark of the 20 SHG-run community preschools initiated in 1995 at Ramanathapuram district by the Association for Integrated Rural Development (AIRD), a non-governmental organisation and member of the Network for Education and Empowerment of Rural Artisans, a development network in Tamil Nadu.

The SHG-managed system of community-based, community-owned and community-managed preschools for children of low income group parents, was developed by the Palmyrah Workers Development Society (PWDS), an NGO based in Kanyakumari. It has been adapted by AIRD to local contexts and needs.

Poverty, illiteracy, lack of accessibility to government schools, and discrimination against girls demanded such a need-based intervention rooted in local culture and tradition. In 1995, AIRD started ten community preschools with the participation of SHG members in villages where there were no government primary schools or balwadis.

In an effort to identify and develop local leadership, AIRD identified girls like Revathi from nearby villages and trained them in preschool teaching methodology. AIRD also supported the teacher’s salary, supplied teaching material, provided nutritional counselling to parents, and conducted half-yearly health camps for the children in association with local primary health centres (PHCs).

By 1998, the number of preschools increased to 20. A community preschool federation was formed with one representative member from each of the 20 preschool centres. The SHGs also involved the government in the activities of the preschool. ‘‘We submitted petitions to the collector and asked the government to open schools in villages where there were no schools,’’ says Kalimuthu, a member of the Deepam Federation.

Their repeated attempts resulted in the preschool centres being able to access the Tamil Nadu government’s mid-day meal programme. The PHCs also supported the healthcare needs of the children by offering free medical check-ups and immunisation services.

In 2003, the SHGs supported the staff salary by collecting Rs 25 as fee for a child. Besides SHG members contributed money or rice to supply food for the children on a daily basis. As a result of the people's efforts to mainstream, the district administration took over 12 of the 20 preschool centres. The other four centres have been integrated with the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project and two others are supported by religious institutions.

Today, the community preschool concept exists in 120 villages. ‘‘We have moved from direct services to advocacy. Every child has a right to education. Isolated interventions will not help. We are working through people’s organisations at the field, and at district and policy levels for sustainable impact,’’ says V Gopal, Programme Coordinator, Community Child Education Programme, AIRD.

The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai recently selected the PWDS community pre-school model as one of the ten model case studies in the country. The pre-school initiative illustrates successful blend of self-help, alternatives, and mainstreaming strategies. The community preschool model originally envisaged as an alternative is today mainstreamed. The principle of mainstreaming involves shifting issues from the periphery to the centre. It means that policy makers and those delivering services need to comprehend the specific needs, difficulties, and inequalities the communities face.