Dear Friend,

Another year gone by! We have lots to be thankful for and have a much larger platter to fill in 2008.  Last year saw ISF’s ‘Girls going to School’ initiative take off on a solid footing further strengthening our goal of ensuring primary school education for all girls in the greater Delhi area to begin with. We have been fortunate to have a strong core of supporters without whom our initiative would not have been possible. We thank you all and are counting on your continued support for the success of this campaign. We are planning our annual fund raiser and will be writing to you about that shortly.

Quality and continuity in education is crucial for empowering the girls of their rights as individuals to improve their own lives and that of those around them. ISF and its partner NGOs are investing in teachers’ training and use of child friendly teaching methods to grasp the basics and retain the child’s interest in school. We have begun a remedial programme in 5 MCD schools in West Delhi in partnership with SARD and have been promised an additional 5 schools in East Delhi.

We hope you have been receiving our newsletters to keep you updated on our activities and progress and are attaching our December 2007 activities below.

We hope you will join hands with us in helping the girls help themselves and their communities through education.

Important Milestones:

ISF had carried out enrollment drives among the slum communities and resettlement colonies. Our partner NGOs carried out the campaign during the time of admissions to the MCD schools. Various types of activities like rallies by children, mass meetings, theatre and drama, an interface of the communities with the MCD staff was also facilitated so that the admission processes became easy  for the communities. A total of 1823 children were enrolled in the MCD schools through these efforts. 77.4% (1411 children) of the total were in need for Remedial education. The needs assessment exercises called ‘Stepping Stones-Series 1’ were given to children who came to the RECs. Out of the total numbers, 10% of the beneficiaries have been boys.  As the mandate of ISF is to work towards building foundations among the communities through the girls and women, we have consciously kept in mind that boys also get included in the program. There are 39 Remedial Education centers spread out in five out of nine districts of Delhi. These RECs are hosted among the slum communities and the resettlement colonies. These RECs are manned by a total of 41 teachers and eight coordinators with a total of ten partner NGOs.

Working through MCD Schools to Demonstrate Joyful Methods of Learning:

Five RECs are being supported in MCD schools in West Delhi. These centers are being run in partnership with SARD since November 2007, with the objective of demonstrating the use of low-cost teaching-learning materials for improving the quality of teaching and learning processes in the classrooms. The  introduction of such creative and innovative methods have helped to reduce the learning gaps, among the children and  also contributed towards their overall development. The main focus is to reduce the number of dropouts, enhance the retention of children in the schools so that they successfully complete primary schooling.

The ISF coordinators recently visited the centers that were started in November 2007. The schools visited were Nagar Nigam Prathmik Vidyalaya-Dwarka Sec-3 which had two shifts, Nagar Nigam Prathmik Vidyalaya-Dwarka Sec-I which had one shift and Nagar Nigam Prathmik Vidyalaya, Madhu Vihar, Dwarka which again had two shifts. They observed during their recent visits that the classrooms were well decorated and the ambience was supportive towards learning. Teachers were very interactive and involved with the girls, the classroom processes gave a lot of room for the children to participate. Teaching aids were present in the classroom. The subject and the topic related aids were in use, which opened up the imagination and creativity of the children. The children were selected for remedial support after the needs assessment exercises like pre-tests. Classroom decoration with TLMs and aids were still in the process.

Vision for the Girl Child:

On 14 December 2007, ISF and its partner NGOs participated in a Gender sensitization workshop. Dr. Jaya Shrivastava, former Director - Ankur-Society for Alternatives in Education, facilitated this workshop. She has been working with women, young people and children in the slums of Delhi, for the last two decades. The objective of the workshop was to discuss the broader framework of the program with stronger commitments and cooperation for the next stages in the process.

Developing Model Remedial Education Centers (RECs):

The NGO partners of the Girls Going to School project met and discussed  ways  to improve quality of education and other essentials for developing  these RECs into model Centers. Discussions were held on several issues, some of which are listed below:

Right to Education: Actions Now

ISF was invited to participate in a seminar on Right to Education-Actions Now, organized by Aspen Institute, CII and Shiksha. For this event ISF had presented a paper on “Issues related to Primary Education” which was circulated amongst the participants.

Thank you, TiE!

At the TiE Enterepreneurial Summit in Delhi, ISF had a booth for imparting and displaying information of its current projects and partners. The booth had many visitors who showed interest in our work and requested us to keep them informed on our progress through regular updates.

Valedictory Function for Talent Promotion:

Following a weeklong program organized by our partner RASTA, which helped  bring out the latent talents of children of the RECs, a valedictory function was organized on 30th December 2007. This gave an opportunity to the children from the slums to perform and present their talent in sports, music and dance. It was a very good opportunity for the children, not only to display their talent but also to help in their personality development. Children of all age groups participated very enthusiastically in this event.