Let's Connect For A Cause: September 2014

Nowadays ,often when I watch the Indian Talk Show ‘Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’ hosted by versatile actor Anupam Kher on Television I tend to get into a flashback mode -Almost 7 years back it was a weekday evening, C.R.Y. (Ngo-Child relief and you) had invited me for a donors’ meet at a school in Khar Mumbai. They showcased the work they had been doing for many years, i.e support and advocacy for child rights.

Never did I dream that a time will come when I would feel so strongly about this cause and get so involved with the issues, that I would start my own non-profit organization –“Citizens Association for Child Rights [CACR]”.

On 28^th June 2014, CACR completed a year of its operation and thanks to the blessings of the Almighty and the good wishes of our members and volunteers, the celebration cum orientation workshop was very well attended despite the heavy downpour in Mumbai.

WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN -TOGETHER

The experience of anchoring similar initiatives for the earlier NGO sensitized and instilled an unknown confidence within me, to go in the world and talk about issues related to the poor functioning and dismal quality of education in Mumbai’s Municipal (Inner city) Schools. Our public schools face such neglect, despite the extraordinary budgets sanctioned every year for primary education. I have also explained to many people why and how citizens’ participation is extremely important to make a difference.

I feel deeply involved and concerned to ensure better functioning of schools and improving their quality of education. This is probably reflected in my interactions with individuals, citizens groups, activists, government authorities etc. Such interactions and planned interventions will ultimately help in improving the accountability, functioning and the quality of education in our municipal schools

I am grateful to all the people who listened to me patiently, encouraged me, and guided me on how to tackle the various seemingly intractable issues in the MCGM. Few of them believed in me completely and decided to hold hands and walk together with me in what has been an unbelievable and most satisfying journey so far.

Our FIRST Anniversary

To be honest, the last few years of my journey has been truly amazing and the satisfaction I get while meeting and discussing how like-minded citizens can work together with the concerned authorities to help improve the system (improve it rather than create parallel systems) cannot be described in words, thinking about it makes me extremely emotional.

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I know, we have taken only the first few steps and there is a long way to go, but I feel very positive and committed towards the cause and with the support of my Co-Directors Vidya Vaidya and Deepak Wadhwani, and Dr.Richa Singh our Projects & Branding Head, who have been a pillar of strength and support, as well as the good wishes and guidance of our Advisory Board CACR has now entered a ONE WAY road.

The road towards spreading the word, getting people sensitized and involving them in making a difference towards this most important cause of ensuring free, compulsory and quality education in municipal schools. Education is the only sustainable way out of the abject poverty many of our disadvantaged citizens face day in and day out.

Of course, being the Founder Director of a NGO has increased my responsibilities and commitment to the cause but I have to once again thank every member in CACR, since it only due to their support and good wishes that things are moving forward, slowly and steadily, taking the system along in a positive and bright direction.

So much more to learn, much more to do....

Like the title of the talk show points out a very surprising yet true fact - LIFE MEIN KUCH BHI HO SAKTA HAI...(Anything can be achieved in life if you so wish)

~Nitin Wadhwani
Founder-Director
Citizens Association for Child Rights CACR

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

In 2008, after my retirement, I nursed my mother for 2 years. I think it is this effort that led me to my new career in social work. In July 2013, I got two projects added to the two that I already had. A total of four, which I thought I could do justice to. Both these new projects were courtesy my Indian Institute of Technology (IITB) 1969 classmate and well known RTI activist Shailesh Gandhi. One of the projects was about voluntarily teaching computer literacy (called CLP) to the MCGM's (inner city) Primary School students.

The group of volunteers at CACR-Citizens Association for Child Rights was functioning vibrantly, interacting with the MCGM Schools. Its credo was to get the MCGM School System to work for itself and hand hold till this happens. This group took up Shailesh's initiative and started teaching CLP in a few schools. His original concept called for volunteer teachers to be able to teach in a neighbourhood school two hours per week. And though I live in Mahim in the ( G-North) Ward, I and my wife Archana were both willing to go to Bandra (W) to another ward to teach and that is how we ended up getting the Petit school near Bhabha Hospital assigned to us.

I have spent my entire career in Computer Science and Information Technology both in Academics and Industry. Yet teaching CLP to primary school children was an entire new cup of tea. When I began to teach, I stepped in to the world of inner-city primary schools (and the associated strata of society) for the first time. The spacious building with a computer room of its own, impressed me as more than adequate infrastructure for any school. Getting to know the knowledge level of 4^thStd students (our target group) took some time. One had to try out variations to come to terms with various temperaments – some disciplined ones, some bullies, some lacking in major ways to the extent they could not read the English alphabet which is a must for CLP to be successful.

At that stage Petit school had only 5 desktop computers, which was woefully inadequate to handle a class of 30 students. We CACR members, the school and the Administrative Officer AO pursued this matter and by December we had 5 additional desktops added which eased the situation to some extent.

These are modern desktops from leading international vendors with an on site warranty that extends to 2016. They are all installed with Windows7. The only shortfall is they are not networked into a local area network (LAN) nor are they connected to Internet.

I had been a professor of Computer Science once and had authored drafts of two textbooks. I was again inspired to write a CLP textbook of sorts for the current set of students. I wrote it in parts as I progressed with teaching CLP. I was optimistic and felt that the internet is an integral part of computer literacy in current times and included 4 lessons in that area too.

By December I began to realise that the students' progress was far less than expected or desired. Our lack of adequate voluntary teachers was also forcing us into less than one session per week for each standard and thus the pace of teaching was irregular and very slow. By this time I had begun to teach CLP at Dharavi Transit Camp (DTC) school too. One major difference was that DTC had a full time (FT) CLP teacher. He could not initially teach CLP. But he learned as I began to teach. Eventually, he took over and taught all the standards of the school using a set weekly time table.

In this process two goals were accomplished. I trained a teacher who could cover a much larger set of the student population (without the dependency on voluntary teachers). It also meant that BMC teachers who are paid to teach were now doing their work rather than depend on NGOs or voluntary teachers to do their work. I was convinced that this is the way to go forward. I resolved that I will not teach CLP directly in the academic year 14-15 but will train anyone who is assigned to be a Full Time FT CLP teacher. I have been pursuing this idea with BMC officials urging them to assign a FT CLP teacher but so far it has not borne adequate results.

By the time I began at DTC I had begun to revise the first version of my own CLP textbook (of 25 pages). I dropped the internet lessons and improved the remaining ones. The resulting second version was much better and could be taught more easily.I am happy to report that by end of March when the MCGM schools were about to close (early due to national elections) the students at both Petit and DTC were able to reach a computer literacy level which I would consider satisfactory.

Much more practice would still be required for the students to be able to work without any help and gain speed but the essentials of typing and editing was in. We also felt that these students need to be taught English. We chose the BCPT's eTeach material developed by Tata Interactive and began teaching itto the same target group of 4th to 7th standards. This was done mostly by my wife Archana.

CACR continued to grow rapidly to become a robust non-profit. We even celebrated our first birthday in style. CACR now has partnered with many complementary NGOs and institutions who could enrich the lives of BMC primary students. What is remarkable about CACR and what sets it apart is its resolve to get the MCGM School System to work for itself and also deliver quality education. If it keeps to this resolve I am sure that in the next few years it will bring a significant change not only in the MCGM’s Primary Education System but equally important improve the quality of teaching that is imparted. That in turn should turn the tide of parents back to the MCGM schools and enable talented students from these strata to avail of free education and rise to whatever they are capable of in life.

Teaching/hand holding is only a small part of CACR. Pressing on BMC educational hierarchy, to resolve school deficiencies, participation in SMCs to educate parents on their rights under RTE, monitoring schools on many parameters and much more, comes under CACR’s scope.

Much work remains to be done and the MCGM behemoth moves very slowly. But it is not cast in stone and we think it has moved a little but perceptibly in the last year or so that we have been dealing with it. We hope to move this mountain to a desired position so that the immense funds that the citizens of Mumbai contribute (Rs 2,660 crores per year!) are used to graduate able citizens of tomorrow.

~Dr. S. Wagle
This is the third article in the series of volunteer journey's with CACR on our first anniversary
The first article can be read HERE

Ngo CACR is a educational start-up working to improve the quality of education in inner city schools of Mumbai