Let's Connect For A Cause

As a retired Engineer and Finance professional, residing in Santacruz West,Mumbai I volunteered for the last three years, to improve the quality of education in Municipal {inner city} Schools of the H-West Ward. Since then I have been a part of Citizens Association for Child Rights (CACR) ,a citizen's initiative, trying my best, to help improve conditions in these Municipal schools. Our group has covered nearly 40 schools, largely the Primary and Upper Primary sections in Marathi, English, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada (8 Indian languages) medium schools.

Unfortunately, there are very few Municipal Secondary schools in this ward (and Mumbai as a whole), owing to which students who want to pursue education beyond Elementary level (under RTE post-Std VII) are either forced to look for expensive options or are compelled to forgo their formal education.

My role is to coordinate CACR volunteers and help improve, to the extent possible, education related activities in the schools of our Ward.

As per the latest data available, there are less than 3.5 lac students in Municipal Schools in Mumbai. Over the last few years, despite increasing budgets, there has been a marked decline in student enrollment. To mitigate this, our focus today has been largely to improve their Spoken English skills and impart Basic Computer skills. These two facets are considered critical and expected to greatly improve employment opportunities. With this in mind, the effort has been to procure relevant material through tie-ups and impart the information to as many students as possible.

Collaborations have been made with the Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) and Tata Interactive Systems for Spoken English, and IIT Bombay (IIT B) for Basic Computer skills - multi lingual ‘Spoken Tutorial’ videos developed by IIT B 'with support from the Human Resource Development -HRD Ministry of the Govt. of India'

CACR’s effort towards fuller / more complete the implementation of the Virtual Class Rooms (VCR), in quite a few schools has encouraged favourable developments in these schools.The number of schools covered by the VCR project will progressively increase from the present coverage of 480, including 360 Primary schools. This is expected to give a great boost / thrust to the reach of CACR’s efforts.

The introduction of Semi-English by the MCGM in conjunction with British Council , right from Std. I, is likely to help improve enrollment in the near future. CACR is, in its own way, making a conscious effort to make the parents of enrolled students aware of the facilities available in these schools and trying to publicise the rights and entitlements of the students. Over the next few years, the objective is to teach Mathematics and Science, to students of all mediums of instruction, in English.

Mr.Mirchandani and other other CACR members interacting with students & parents at a community centre

As a CACR volunteer, I have been on the School Management Committee of the Laxmi Nagar school, near Khar Gymkhana, Khar W, closely monitoring its progress. Despite our efforts at improving enrollments, the declining trend is yet to be arrested. Partly it is the growing aspirations of the parents to enroll their children in English medium schools. Most importantly, the quality of education imparted in these schools needs substantial improvement.

If in the Metros, conditions of these schools are substantially below expectations, then the position in the interiors of Maharashtra State would be unimaginable. The available facilities are not being optimally utilised for the benefit of the children attending these schools.

The running of these schools needs to be closely monitored. The approach is to ‘hand hold’ and in the process strengthen the hands of MCGM in this gigantic task. The focus is to make the system work and link Authority with Accountability.

Efforts are always on strengthen the pool of CACR volunteers to increase the reach.So come and join us in our endeavour

-Mr. M. Mirchandani, CACR.

This is the second article in the series of volunteer journey's with CACR on our first anniversary
The first article can be read HERE

It was around April 2013 when Mr Nitin informed me that after leaving C.R.Y. (Child Rights and You) he will consult a few friends and perhaps start something on this own. A short while later the name ‘Citizens Association for Child Rights-CACR’ was formalized and the logo was in the process of being designed….I had been previously working and coordinating with Mr Nitin as a AGNI K-east Municipal Education group leader since 2008 and realised that not only he was an open-minded and affable person but also had a great passion to work to improve the Municipal Education System throughout Mumbai.

Municipality schools (inner city) or popularly known as BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation) schools are something we or at least I used to associate with poor kids, bad school buildings, plain uniforms, and pathetic teachers. I always thought that the only way to help these kids was to give them money, distribute free meals, books, among other things.

During a Sunday ALM meet when I heard this gentlemen from CRY, Mr.Nitin Wadhwani (back when he was a CRY volunteer) say that the “BMC spends HUGE money to the tune of Rs.600 Crores (100 Million USD) on BMC primary Education alone”, I was astonished.

He further added that all these items essential for students’ education (books, pens, bags, water bottles, shoes, rain-coats, etc.) around 27 items were given to these kids free of cost by the corporation and helping these school students by distributing freebies and money was the WORST way of helping them not the best (contrary to what I believed previously). Sure it was a reality check for many of us in the audience and to this day I clearly recollect the surprise on many faces and the new found enthusiasm to work for improving our neighbourhood municipal schools…this is how our Education group was formed in K-east.

With Mr Nitin’s guidance along with citizen volunteers from other wards (mainly H west and M wards) our education group could improve the situation in few neighbourhood municipal schools of Mumbai. Cleanliness and discipline in schools improved as well as we conducted a student enrolment drive in slum areas to enrol around 100 kids in municipal schools.
At the time I was juggling several things --my job, pursuing a weekend management course, and volunteering with Municipal Education group like stated. But In my heart the thing that made me happiest was the impact that we could create by working in schools as a team and the small positive changes we could make in few student’s lives.

So when Mr Nitin asked me to join CACR I agreed. I liked the cause we were working for and enjoyed working with the team members (most of them were known to me from our CRY and AGNI association).

This July as CACR turned ONE I also complete a year with the organization.

Our Anniversary Function Cake cutting

It has been a great learning curve for me far greater than working for my 2 previous organizations. Also I enjoy working with start-ups for the energy, autonomy, and the innovative ideas that the people bring in. Sure there is a downside too --you are the planner, executor, critic, and promoter of projects, the resources are few and work is ever-increasing, pay is low, and things progress at a rapid pace. But the trade-off is worth it. I am far richer in knowledge, content creation, collaboration, handling social media, and understanding and communicating with people from different walks to life today than I was a year back. I have the team members at CACR and especially Mr.Nitin to thank for this improvement. Moreover, as a participant in conferences and round-tables I have been overjoyed to see so many other individuals, NGos and organizations working in remote areas of rural Maharashtra with merge resources to improve quality of education. Kudos to all of them!

While on this journey I have been delighted to know and meet few admirable and “CRAZY” people. I call them “crazy” because even in today's pessimistic world they are mad enough to believe that they can change the world…they can do something to make it better and that madness is infectious. Hats off to Mr. Nitin, Mr. Shailesh Gandhi, Vidya Vaidya, Mani Patel, Meena Kaura, Mr. Deepak, among many others for doing their bit to change the status quo.

Have you heard that a citizen’s initiative could get 6.5 Cr Rupees sanctioned for schools building repairs?

A handful of citizens could stop the commercial exploitation and harassment of young students going in an illegal school for a decade?

OR
Few students and senior citizens come together to impart Basic Computer skills to more than 1300 students in just few months?

Well, these are just a few things we at CACR have achieved. This is a living proof that people can accomplish a lot if they come together. We have to make our democracy work by playing a participatory role in it. Not just by merely criticizing our government in front of our TV sets as we watch the news.

I believe making transformation happen and being persistent in your efforts for bringing about positive change is the MOST TOUGH job in the world and we at CACR have set out on a long difficult journey to do just that. I hope that many more people will join us and further strengthen our efforts.

Here I would like to make a special mention of our young volunteers and members-Roshni, Dilmohan, Zinal, Ishan, and Jinal among others who have volunteered with us despite their academic and professional commitments and been part of the change from an early age. The youth can play a vital role to bring about change and sensitize people to work for the cause. If more young people join our efforts to improve the system we can see far greater results.

Do contact us on connect.cacr@gmail.com to know how you can be part of this citizen’s initiative and put a smile on many faces.

See ya!

Richa,CACR

This is first article in the series of volunteer journey's with CACR on our first anniversary

The second article can be read HERE