Bridging the Technology Divide

 We cannot create a level-playing field for children unless we take concrete steps to bridge the digital divide. Today the privileged generation-Y seems to have a innate ability to adapt to changing technologies where the disadvantaged lot don't even know how to switch on a computer...

Citizens association for Child Rights-CACR decided to step up and help to create awareness and mitigate this huge technological gap  by introducing  Computer literacy project in Municipal [inner city] schools .   

One of our volunteer's Dr. Wagle describes his experience on the project execution:

"We live in a world today that is increasingly moving to a service economy where computer literacy and inter-personal communication are pre-requisites to landing a job (even as a shop attendant). Computer Literacy and Spoken English are two skills that will help the under privileged (BMC)Municipal  primary school students to bridge the widening gap between themselves and the private school students and give them  a chance to live a better life.

It was in July, 2013 that I stepped for the first time in a BMC school to conduct my first lesson in computer literacy. I had no prior knowledge about the students, teachers, curriculum, building or equipment, hence there was bit of trepidation at what I may discover. First impressions are important. The new, spacious building of BMC Petit school in Bandra (W) is as good as it can get as a healthy teaching environment (granted there is no playing ground). Students in uniform also help as a study enabler. Spacious computer room well furnished for a set of desktops means the infrastructure for teaching computers is there.

It took a month to get to know the following things:

1. Four mediums (Urdu, Marathi, Gujrati and English),

2. Four schools within the building,

3 Friday is a half day and Saturday a full day for the Urdu medium,

4 Availability of only five desktops (but of latest vintage from Acer),

   and many more new things to assimilate.

Since we were teaching the students directly, our contact with the teacher was minimal and only to the extent of requesting them to send their class to the computer room.

The students were the biggest surprise. Their enthusiasm to learn and work on a computer is infectious. It has not diminished even after 8 months we have been with them – as soon as one of us voluntary teachers enters the school students from different medium and standards (4 to 7 which we cover) clamour up asking if today they can come to the computer room.

We had to decide on the pedagogy to be used. IIT, Mumbai has developed software called Spoken Tutorial with funding from the HRD ministry to teach computer literacy which essentially means teaching the Libre Office suite of Writer, Spreadsheet etc. I found the IITB spoken tutorials good, but not tailored for the level of BMC school students. I had to therefore look at an alternative.

CACR has various volunteer groups to teach at multiple BMC schools, mostly in H-West ward. These groups have been autonomous in selecting the pedagogy and thus there has been lot of experience with different methodologies including teaching using IITB software.

I accepted the definition of computer literacy to be student's ability to use Office Suite (Open Office, Libre and Microsoft are three such suites, of which the first two are free). I ended up writing lessons for teaching at Petit and quickly wrote up a mini-book so that other volunteers could use it to teach. After four months, when I had run through the Office related lesson I felt the need for more lessons and decided that in today's age Computer Literacy (CLit) must include lessons on internet. I added four lessons in that category. Fortunately or unfortunately due to lack of any infrastructure to connect the multiple desktops to the net, no lessons were actually delivered.

By November, 2013 and after much study we finalized on the pedagogy for Spoken English (SpE) based on a set of eight animation DVDs made by Tata Interactive.

By November, 2013 I had enough experience and data to know the student population (possibly representative of any BMC primary school) reasonably well in terms of their education level, their knowledge of English, and their class behaviour, their differing talent to learn and urge to study. The picture other than normal spread of talent as in any group was dismal. Most students even upto 7^th standard, had difficulty reading English alphabet and in differentiating the use of capital letters and when to use them. The vocabulary was virtually absent which means that any word in piece of text is nothing more than a sequence of letters. Teaching CLit often became frustrating and seemed hopeless.

In January, 2014 a development took place which in retrospect was for the better. When our organization, Citizen Association for Child Rights (CACR) started teaching at BMC schools the desire was to be able to get volunteers who had to go to a nearby school. Since Bandra (W) was the closest to us (I and my wife Archana) living in Mahim among the initial set of schools we had been going to Petit school there. In October, CACR decided to take on additional schools, made representation to BMC's education department and got permission to teach in more BMC schools.

Dharavi Trasit Camp (DTC) school was in that new set. It is a very large school group with over 10,000 students studying there in primary alone. Going to Dharavi is fraught with poor transport (narrow and crowded roads being one reason). I started going to DTC from December, 2013. By then, I had realized that I was pegging the CLit at a level higher than needed. What was basic to CLit is an ability to type and edit,with calculations (spreadsheet) not being as important.

I completely revised my approach to CLit and began with asking the students to type in simple two paragraph text in multiple repeat lessons. Not withstanding having taught upto Presentation tool at Petit, I started this approach at Petit too. By the end of January, 2014 I began to see the benefits of my new pedagogy. Students across 4 to 7 standard and across medium were on the whole were beginning to type and edit the text given to them on a piece of paper. I then got them to graduate to a more complex and longer piece of text to type and edit. Finally, I got them to save the text to a file of their own and re-open it to check.

Today, at the end of current academic year and before the students at both Petit and DTC schools go on summer vacation, I have the satisfaction that the students have become computer literate even if it is only to type and edit.

There was one major difference between Petit and DTC. At DTC there was BMC appointed full time teacher for teaching computers. He was a part of mass adoption by BMC to use the IITB software with 100+ teachers so appointed. This teacher was not able to teach anything other than letting students play with Paint tool till I volunteered. He then learnt the use of Writer program while I taught and then used that knowledge to teach other medium and other standards which I could not teach directly in my limited 2-day per week schedule. This teacher also made a regular schedule of such lessons for the entire week.

Spending just two hours per week in a social cause such as teaching in BMC schools should be no problem for any person even when he or she is working. But despite sizable population among us of senior citizen (who should have plenty of spare time) getting voluntary teachers is the most difficult problem that we have faced. This problem has remained unsolved and constrains CACR from expanding its school coverage.

CACR also believe that it is best that the school teaching is best imparted by school teachers rather than through the crutches of outside teachers. In DTC, both these goals came together. There is a clear pointer here. Get BMC to appoint full-time teachers for CLit (and also for SpE). Train the teacher (and be guide in some of the lessons he or she teaches) and you reduce your need for voluntary teachers and get BMC to do its own work. I suggested this requirement to the AO of H-West ward and am happy that a full time computer teacher has been identified at Petit for the next academic year.

The Petit and DTC models are potentially scalable. 100 teachers have already been identified (BMC has 300 school buildings and therefore the need is for 300 teachers and trainers and mentors for each of them). Lot more planning will be required and it may take another full academic year to get the scaling up right. But at the end of it 80+% of BMC students would be computer literate (and that would include spreadsheet and possibly more).

 I hope CACR is able to persuade the BMC education department to go along and put its will behind this experiment."

Dr. S.Wagle _CACR

Communities: the real beneficiaries of various Government schemes, but do they know?

Out of every Rupee sanctioned by the Center, only 5 paise reaches the actual beneficiaries.....Where is it all going? 

Huge amount of tax payers money is used by the Government for various schemes and subsidies for the poor and there have been probably hundreds of schemes which are discussed and debated by our elected representatives for years, before they are actually converted into Bills and Acts and budgets worth thousands of crores are created and sanctioned accordingly.

How many proposed beneficiaries are actually aware about these schemes and do our elected representatives, bureaucrats and  officials from various departments made accountable in implementing these schemes??

The tragedy is that most of the actual beneficiaries of these schemes never know about these schemes at all and a very small section of these beneficiaries are made to run from pillar to post to get the benefit, that they ultimately give up.

Then there is a section of our society who are generally aware about these schemes, but do precious little about it, since they are not the direct beneficiaries.

A lot of NGOs who work on various issues, do not bother to create an awareness or follow up with the authorities concerned to ensure proper implementation of these schemes, but go back to donors, individual and corporate sector, etc. and create parallel systems.

Who wants the headache of following up and talking to authorities in Government Departments or even our elected representatives for something which does not benefit us directly? 

And this is precisely the reason for failure in proper implementation and execution of all Government Schemes, resulting in colossal waste of tax payer money. 

Based on this experience with the Education Department, CACR decided to create empowered and aware citizens, who on one side will continue to have dialogue and create accountability in the various concerned departments, meet our elected representatives, interact with communities who are the direct beneficiaries etc.and ensure proper implementation of various schemes meant for the poor and underprivileged.

Even if a good percentage of the Rs.2660 crores budgeted for primary education in Mumbai is monitored and well spent, we will have achieved our objective.

The positive angle the RTE Act does allow NGOs to participate along with parents and authorities from the system.

Infact a typical SMC in a school would comprise of 20 members,  which would include 15 parents(50% women), rest comprising of school authorities, local elected representative as well as NGO representative.

Role of the NGO representatives would be to monitor the system, empower the community, share observations and findings with the hierarchy of the department which would finally help in ensuring better functioning and improved quality of education in municipal schools.

While this sounds a lot of hard work, it is the only sustainable solution which will ensure that the benefits of such schemes actually reach the true beneficiaries.

CACR strongly believes that empowering communities and getting them to participate in the system, is a long term and sustainable solution to this problem.
Come volunteer with us. Donate your Time, Money and Word. 

Nitin_CACR 

Non profits: A profitable and recession proof business. Donation anyone?

Where is the recession? I said to myself as I read the newspaper article sometime back.

      An interesting article in one of the leading dailies in the country highlighted the fact that- India is witnessing a NGO boom, which has now become a billion dollar industry.
Yes, NGOs or (non) profits is a profitable business in India! 
Wow! what a contradiction isn't it?

   There are now almost 2 million NGOs in a population of 1.2 billion people, i.e  1 NGO for every 600 people as against 1 cop for 943 people and A whopping USD 2 billion received by about 22,000 NGOs in the country, in 2010-11 alone.

Despite all these figures and huge budgets for education and health, it is shocking to know that there are almost 8.1 million children in age group 8-13 years, who are out of school as per UNICEF report and almost 61 million children are malnourished and stunted, according to Hunger and Malnutrition Report.

    The fact is that there is a total lack of accountability, which has resulted in none of the subsidies, schemes and funds budgeted actually reaching out to the actual beneficiaries.
It is a matter of great shame that even a very noble Mid Day Meal scheme does not ensure good and nutritious meals for children enrolled in government schools, though official records show that almost 10.68 crore children are getting the benefit of hot, cooked , nutritious meals in almost 12 lakh government schools.

    One of the major reasons for the abject failure of these schemes is allowing NGOs to create parallel systems rather than supplementing and strengthening the system, which would have helped in creating better awareness and improved implementation of all these schemes meant to benefit the poor and needy. 

    There are no examples of any of the PPP -Private Public partnership models, which have helped in improving the education and healthcare systems in the country and it is matter of shame that most the resources provided by Government have resulted in commercial exploitation, benefiting only a small percentage of the entire population.

At CACR we don't believe in creating alternative systems rather we  supplement,strengthen, and improve the existing one. The Education department officials are well qualified (only first class or distinction candidates are selected ) for teaching and administration, experienced and quite well paid with government benefits. Why not help them do their job better instead of making your own pedagogy  taking over a school and weakening the existing system?

  Lets be part of the solution and channelize what we have. Volunteer and be an empowered citizen.

Team CACR
+Citizens Association For Child Rights
www.ngocacr.com

Lessons for LIFE from a Marathon

They say “the journey is more important than the destination”. Thousands of people participate in the marathons every year but only a percent of them actually win. Some of the participants leave it mid-way while some take a shortcut.

     

   This year Citizens association for child rights- CACR, a NGO working to improve quality of education in public schools on Mumbai India, was going to sponsor 70+ school girls from Municipal (inner city) schools to participate in India's only women marathon-DNA iCAN.

 I joined the DNA iCan half marathon (5km fun run) as a CACR volunteer on 9^th March 2014 at BKC,Mumbai and earned some of the following lessons of life:

• Challenge yourself:

    I was volunteering to accompany the Municipal students for the fun run, so initially I was in two minds whether or not  to participate in the race. Later on, I caved in and joined the race. As I was completing the 1 km distance,the 13-14 year old school girls finished their 3kms. I was surprised and thought it is due to the age factor that I am slower than them.

    But was it true?I realized that these girls had a single goal in my mind to win. For them the prize was the motivating factor. For me, there was no motivation, I ran for a cause. Could I challenge myself even if it is for a cause? We don’t challenge ourselves these days, either in job or in personal life. We are happy at the position we are. We use our weakness or economic scenario as our scapegoat.

Lesson 1: Challenge yourself, either in job for a particular position or in a business or in a marathon for 1^st prize or as a volunteer. Challenge keeps you active and happy. It also helps you overcome your weakness which you use as a reason of your failures. Use the mantra “I have to win” instead of “I will try to win”.

• Know your Basics:

For every challenge it is important to know your basics, whether you an impulsive person or planner, knowing the environment is important. I knew the basics of a marathon-shoes,outfit, and a loads of energy, but “knowing” is different from “implementing”.

   I wore the wrong size of shoe (I had only one pair which belonged to my sister and they looked cute). I paid the prize when my legs started killing me as the race started. Some of the participants had worn jeans which I thought was an outfit not suitable for a race and for a hot March Mumbai morning.

I like to walk, running is not my forte. I ran only once in a school, so running a 5km race proved to be difficult.

Lesson 2: Know your environment. Know your strength and weakness and accordingly prepare.

• Strategy:

My strategy for the race was to run, but I had neither the physical or mental strength for running as I had no experience. So I alternated between running and walking to complete my 5km. Most of the participant had similar strategy as I saw everyone alternate between walking and running.

It is good to be cautious but having a low risk strategy always doesn't work. Some of the best companies in the world, leaders in the world, crafted the riskiest strategy to win.

                        

For those who finished the race, their strategy was to walk, take break in between. For those who wanted to win, their strategy was to run and run with no break in between (reminded me of “The Tortoise and Hare Story).

 

Photo of school girls with few CACR volunteers after finishing the fun run 

Lesson 3: Make strategies along the lines of winner. Push and push but never take a break. Taking a break means reevaluating your work and negating it. So your strategy should be such that every milestone you take you win. Don’t stop at the milestone, continue moving forward.

• Be innovative:

As my shoes were causing hell to me, I decided to loosen the laces and continue with my walk/run. One of my colleagues suggested me to remove them and run, but I felt it was a funny idea. We follow the rules/ societal etiquette without batting an eye. I saw no one running without shoes and I thought I would look weird and may become a status update for someone due to this stunt.

Next day I opened the newspaper and I read an article where one of the winners decided to run without shoes. I was literally gob smacked.

I was still happy that irrespective of the pain in my feet I finished my race.

Lesson 4: Be innovative. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken to achieve something in life.

•  Focus:

Due to my shoe debacle, few people came to me to made me aware of the dangers of letting a shoelace run in all directions. I was embarrassed and happy at the same time. Embarrassed because of my silly idea and happy that people cared, but I also started thinking how did they notice?

When you are running or walking your vision should be forward, not upwards/downwards. Other things should be blurred to you.

Clearly, it was not the case. This is what we do in life; we are never focused in life. Something or other sways our vision, ultimately affecting our decision.

Lesson 5: Concentrate. Focus. Stop listening to gossip or be affected by political/economic/familial situations while achieving your goals. Success is never easy to achieve. There is something or other hindering you on your path to your goals

                                                   

• Apart from this there is one more important lesson I learned Opportunity. Few of the BMC-Municipal students completed the race in 30-40 mins. With proper training and motivation can these students win in the next marathon? Perhaps, they definitely had the potential. 

 Can they become the  next P.T Usha, India's running champion ? Do schools make Marathon as an opportunity to teach their students in the art of physical and mental strength? Do they use this opportunity to create the best runner in the world? I guess not... but they could start.I hope to get the message across.

  Sometimes you can change your life by changing the life of others.

JZ is a volunteer with CACR .   

CACR - www.ngocacr.com

The death of the public school...a preventable tragedy?

     It was a summer morning in  2030 and a kid picked up a newspaper ..He quickly asked me what were (erstwhile) Inner city /Municipal schools? When did they exist and  Why did they vanish?
      For a moment let's get back to current day in 2014. Where our public schools are very much present but  do they really exist for the common 'middle' class? Does any one care to read or know about them expect the people looking to exploit them for private gain?
Is Public Private Partnership in Education the death knell for the Government Schools in the country?
    Almost 2500 classrooms in municipal schools in Mumbai,India have bee given away to various NGOs/Trusts Under the School Adoption/School Support Programme. Almost 650 classrooms for non educational purposes, and quite a few are using it for Education but are being commercially exploited.
Despite notices given to almost 650 NGOs asking them to vacate  the classrooms, the department has been able to recover only 16/18 classrooms as on date after a period of almost 6/7 months.

     CACR members have observed many classrooms/schools being exploited commercially too, a case of Varun International School functioning within a municipal school and not only depriving the children of all facilities and amenities like free uniforms, school books, notebooks, etc. but also asking the parents to pay fees of Rs.5000/Rs.10,000 and even punishing the children in classrooms when they fail to pay within a stipulated time.
    Moreover this NGO not only exploits and uses more number of classrooms than specified in the agreement, but also is able to issue School Leaving Certificates to children from the BMC, despite functioning as a private school, paying a miserly rent of Rs.1000 to the corporation....Recently this matter was bought to light by the print media here.
There are also some more instances of MS-CIT courses being provided within a municipal school, charging fees of Rs.3150/child and enrolling hundreds of children for this course, with no facility for the municipal school children....schools converted to Junior Colleges, private schools, etc. large scale commercial exploitation.
In a way, if the Government seriously decides to implement the 25% reservation clause for EWS in private and aided schools, which it has not done in the last 3 years of the RTE Act, there will be further reduction in enrollments in municipal schools, since parents prefer to send children to private schools and English medium schools, etc. So indeed our future generations will  read in newspapers that the Municipal schools existed somewhere in the past and are a extinct phenomenon now.

2030: PUBLIC SCHOOLS   Now extinct 

CACR is facing a herculean task of ensuring retention of children in municipal schools despite the huge amount of tax payer money budgeted for primary education.
Absolutely shocking state of affairs in such an important issue like basic primary education, in the country.
But then does the 'common middle class' care enough to do something about it?
Do join us to build a PUBLIC VOICE to save the vanishing structures called Municipal public schools

Nitin_CACR

Remember we NEVER stop hoping!

"Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment." --Tony Robbins

In my experience -Whenever we identify a problem, it is in the larger interests to review the same from all possible angles before working out the necessary solution.

Based on the periodical feedback received from many of our CACR volunteers, while visiting neighborhood municipal schools, we have been interacting with the hierarchy of the BMC Education Department and expressing our concerns and suggesting solutions to them.
        CACR members have been meeting the Administrative Officers(Schools), the Deputy Education Officers of the zones, the Superintendents, the Education Officer, the Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Education ) as well as the Additional Municipal Commissioner (City and Education).

 BUT  The one link missing in this chain was the Labour Unions and it was extremely shocking to know that there are almost 38 Unions registered with the Municipal Corporation as on date, with about 7 of them handling the teachers and administrative staff of the Education Department.

It has been observed that many administrative staff and teachers do not follow or fear the authorities since they get a back up support from their respective unions.(Ya, Unions can be powerful)

The questions to be asked are:-

1. Are these unions really concerned about the fact that the budgets and expenditure is increasing and the number of children in these schools is dwindling?

2. Are the children enrolled in municipal schools getting quality education, good enough to compare with the private and aided schools?

3. With the 25% reservation clause for children belonging to the Economically Weaker Sections, in private and aided schools, there will be a further reduction in enrollments in municipal schools. What are these unions doing to counter this challenge?

4. The authorities feel that there can be better accountability and functioning of these schools if they get into Public Private Partnerships with various NGOs. Incase this is implemented, the BMC employed well paid and well qualified teachers will have nothing to do, and the NGOs will not be able to provide the same job security, salaries, perks and benefits, etc as the municipal corporation does.

5. What steps are the Unions taking to ensure improved accountability of the teachers and administrative staff and ensure that these schools do not shut down?

6. Are these Unions ever concerned about the rights of children and do they have any point in their agenda which talks about the welfare of the children going to these municipal schools?

Armed with all these questions in my mind...I will pay a visit to the Union offices in the coming days...to get their side of the story and Can we put together and find a solution?

Perhaps YES! ...Remember we NEVER stop hoping! 

Nitin_CACR

That First Experience..

 Everyone has thought of a fixed path in life—A good career in a fortune 500 company, money, and an early retirement to start something new. Volunteering comes into picture only after retirement for most of us.

There is no time for anything else in our busy life. As it is our Social life, traveling, family, Job, keep us occupied so volunteering is not even part of the equation. Leisure time is spent meeting with friends, eating and drinking, and shopping. Social responsibility is left to the corporate companies with big pockets and resources,rights? 

This belief changed when I was struggling to get a job. As the famous saying goes “An empty mind is a devil’s workshop”, I decided to volunteer for namesake, when an old friend told me about some computer literacy project with IITB. 

I had decided in the beginning that if it became too difficult I would give some excuse and leave. Difficult situations can be handled only in jobs where there is incentive of promotion, money, and recognition which clearly is not the case with volunteering.

So charged with that notion in mind I went to the nearest Municipal (BMC) School with a colleague. After observing the surroundings and from the conversation with the Head Master-HM, I could infer that school had only two computers for a classroom of 40 students!  My resolution strengthened that it was waste of my time. I remembered all the conversations that I used to have with my colleagues, families, relatives, friends that it was hopeless to have any kind of expectation from the Government. We are mere citizens and not superheroes. So I realized I couldn’t change a thing, and nobody could either Best course of action would be to leave and start in another school.

But when one of my fellow volunteers decided to continue even with two computers, I was surprised. “Nothing is impossible” and “I’m possible” are just quotes for text books we read, I knew in my gut.

But disagreeing in public has never been my style, so armed with my colleague’s enthusiasm we decided to call two students at a time and teach one topic spending approximately 10mins with them.

We started with naming different components of a computer, followed by how to switch on and off a computer, with finally how to open, close, and save a Libre Office word document. As we continued teaching more and more students, we observed some were faster and some were slower in learning, but the common thread was that all were eager to gain knowledge. Most of the students didn’t have access to computers; few who did were trying to remember their forgotten computer class conducted a year ago.

As we progressed further, the students who had finished learning would stand and observe the next batch of students and help their classmates who got stuck on a particular step. This continued with other students too. As we finished for the day, they asked us the most important question “when were we coming back”. When we replied next week, they thought it would be too late. They were so eager to learn more. Their enthusiasm was infectious!

Their feedback and bright faces made us realized that sometimes achievement in terms of helping others is greater than monetary compensation or promotions. The happiness that you feel makes you realize that words of the old wise men are true-‘Happiness cannot be measured with money’ 

We cannot always wait for the system to change; sometimes we also have to take a step in that direction.

   We may not be able to bring a drastic change in the political scenario, but we can bring a change into the life of others by that one hour of volunteer work. It may take time and it does take because a seed cannot grow into a tree within few days. It takes time to nurture it, but it’s the end result that is fascinating.

With this, I hope all my fellow friends also give one hour of their time to volunteer. Let’s not wait for retirement or that feeling of making a change to perform such acts.

---The author of the article JZ has earned her Engineering degree and MBA from Mumbai University and still continues to volunteer on weekends along with her current job.

Inclusive Education --The answer to disability

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude"- said author, Scoot Hamilton.CACR and ADAPT together want to sensitize people about disability and make the city more disabled friendly.

CACR has partnered with ADAPT (Abled Disabled All People Together).ADAPT was formerly known as 'The Spastic Society Of India' . The CEO and Trustee of ADAPT has written about their future and current initiatives with CACR.

CACR was instrumental to help ADAPT to plan and initiate the 'sensitization program' for the Municipal school Principals of Mumbai, India.

Over to Varsha "

Education and Accessibility

The Right to Education Act (RTE) makes it mandatory for schools to take in children with disabilities. As a result, the government programmes of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are now including children with special needs.

There are however challenges, the main one being access. Access does not pertain only to architectural barriers that prevent persons from disability from participating in mainstream life. It also refers to access to education, to the curriculum, to employment.

The Persons with Disability Act mandates that the State create a barrier free environment for person with disabilities and make special provision of the integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream. These include:

1. ramps in public buildings;
2. adaptation of toilets for wheel chair users;
3. braille symbols and auditory signals in elevators or lifts;
4. ramps in hospitals, primary health centers and other medical care and rehabilitation institutions.

On the other hand, regular teachers and other professionals are not trained in inclusive education. Since the ‘How’ of inclusion has still not been worked out, teachers find it difficult to deal with differences in the classroom. The Training and Pedagogy department of ADAPT, set up by Founder Chairperson, Dr. Mithu Alur in 1978 as there were no trained professionals to teach children with multiple disabilities, has been conducting training programme in the field of education, disability, inclusion in education and the community for various stake holders and has trained over two thousand teachers, Principals, Master Trainers, therapists and parents.

We have trained regular teachers from schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in inclusive education. Programmes have also been held for the Municipal Corporations of Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Dombivali and Meera Bhayender.

We are therefore very happy to partner the H West Federation and the Citizens Association for Child Rights-CACR to spread awareness about inclusive education and make the H-West Ward a ‘disabled-friendly ward’.  

Future Plans

A half day sensitization programme for the Principals of 1150 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is planned in April 2014. This we hope is the first step to including children with disabilities into their schools so that the Right to Education can be implemented and no child is left out of school.

Simultaneously, we hope to initiate the campaign for equal access undertaken by The ADAPT Rights Group (ARG), set up by Malini Chib, Trustee, Acting CEO, disabled advocate and author, ‘One little Finger’ entitled ‘Mumbai Rising for Disability Access: We the People Too’

A group of young persons with and without disability will now conduct access audits of public buildings along with students of architecture and advise on the ways in which they may be made more accessible to those with physical disabilities or limitations.

A beginning was made at the MUST Run when establishments in Bandra that had incorporated ramps at their entrances were felicitated. Unfortunately very few turned up to accept this acknowledgement but we are hopeful that as awareness on this spreads, we will have many more supporters.

Once again, this is an appeal to all to join us in our campaign of making first H Ward and then all of Mumbai accessible. "

Varsha_ADAPT