CARMDAKSH

CARMDAKSH is working in three districts that are located adjoining each other namely Bilaspur, Korba, and Gaurella-Pendra-Marwahi (GPM) districts in Chhattisgarh. Our Major focus of intervention is improvement in the quality of life of the poor and marginal section of the society. Our major theme of intervention is sustainable Livelihood through Integrated Natural Resource Management and quality education at the primary level. 

Location

The Education program is located in Pali block of Korba district where we are working with four centres. Our intervention is with primary school children with a focus on classes 1st and 2nd through the learning center. Eklavya is helping us in building the capacity of the team and strengthening our intervention at the school level. Our intervention is in four primary schools in four villages through learning centers. Volunteers who are generally village youth help us in implementing the program. 

Updates

We started our Intervention in Feb 2020 but unfortunately, we were unable to work at the ground level for the initial two years due to the Pandemic. Lockdowns and restrictions due to COVID-19 have impacted the normal operation of schools and the education of students. Hence, we could work effectively for only one year.

We utilized this period to build the capacities of the team with support from Eklavya. Unfortunately, during this period some team members dropped out because of COVID and other personal reasons. We were constantly working towards building a team that could commit to work for a longer duration.  As a team, our progress has been slow mainly due to staff turnover. The new team members (who replaced the older members) took time to get going with the program.

We could eventually start our program in full steam in the third year i.e., 2022. Our intervention in four primary schools allowed us to directly work with the students. This helped us to gradually build our program. We were able to connect with the community to create awareness about education and help the parents appreciate their critical role in strengthening the learning of their children as well as the importance of staying engaged with the school. The team has also been working very closely with the schoolteachers who have appreciated the impact of our work on the children and their parents. 

We are working with 12 teachers in four schools. Teachers learn about TLM in the Learning center to help the children in the learning process. They participate in community meetings and school development committee meetings. For those children who do not come for a long time, teachers do home visits with the CARM-DAKSh team.

At present, we are working in four primary schools where we have established four learning centers to support the children. The CARM-DAKSH team works in close association with the village-level volunteers at the learning center. The volunteers are the active youth in the village who come forward to support us in organizing meetings with the community and extend support in the learning center during class hours. 

Since we do not pay stipends to the volunteers, we do experience dropouts.  Eight volunteers were identified and trained by the CARM-DAKSH team. Of these two have stayed on and two new volunteers had to be brought on board.

The learning center is established either in the village community hall or in the school as per discussion with community and schoolteachers. The learning center opens before school hours so that children can attend school after the learning center session. We invite parents and sometimes teachers to our learning centers. 

In the learning center, we create a favorable ecosystem for the children using different games (through pictures, and materials), short stories, and songs and perform activities like drawing, rhyming, and playing games. We have used Bala paintings on the wall of the learning center as these stimulate the children and make them curious to learn and remember things.

At the school level, we organize meetings with teachers periodically and participate in cluster meetings to share our initiatives and experiences. During the meeting, we discussed the teaching methods and the challenges faced. The Teachers also periodically share the improvement they observe in the children from alphabet to word to paragraph levels. 

We also organize meetings with SMC members to share the improvement in learning of their children and also mobilize them to participate in the SMC meetings. Regular meetings were organized to create awareness about the importance of quality education and their role as parents.

We organized a Bal Bela (Annual program) at the school level with the permission from DEO (District Education Officer) and the School Principal. This was the first time such an event had been organized in the school. We invited the sarpanch and other villagers to attend the program. We got a good response from the teachers as well as the community including the parents. 

This has helped build the morale of the children. They participated in different programs like drawing, sports, songs, and short plays. We now plan to organize an event where better communication can be facilitated between teachers and parents.

CARM-DAKSH had participated in several training programs organized by various organizations like   Eklavya, Book Worm, and Wipro to build the capacity of the team. Exposure visits are organized to have a better understanding of the work other organizations are doing in the field. As mentioned earlier we experienced a high turnover of staff due to the pandemic and lockdown. This did slow down the progress.

Plans for next 1-3 years 

We had a plan to reach 10 schools in the next three years. We need to explore opportunities to support our plan in the coming year. Along with this, we had planned to work on the establishment and function of the library.

Apart from these, we had planned to build the capacity of the team on Gender Equity and Masculinity.  Strengthen the Livelihood Activity around Vegetable cultivation and Goarty in the coming year.