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BLENDED LEARNING DURING SCHOOL CLOSURE IN YADGIRI DISTRICT
The blended learning program-‘Maneyalli Kaliri Kalisiri’ (Learn and Teach at Home) - was initiated in 21 schools of Arakera K and Kandkur clusters of Yadgiri district in Karnataka.
Prajayatna's initiative used a blended learning process where e-content was provided to the children of classes 1-5 of all the 21 schools in Arakera K and Kandkurclusters.
It was sent separately for two groups – Std 1 and 2 and Std 3 to 5. The content was theme-based and used activities for conceptual understanding of the themes, relied on youtube links to use related stories and songs, along with language and maths activity worksheets.
The audio content was provided as well to support those parents who were not literate. This was sent by Whatsapp to the parents directly by the teachers. The worksheets were also handed to the children physically to reach all children who might not have access to digital devices. Stationary materials were distributed to all children to support them in engaging with the learning process at home.
A total of 2,671 children were engaged through this process till November until the primary schools reopened.
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WEBINAR HELD TO CELEBRATE TEACHERS' DAY
The webinar was held for the occasion of Teachers Day for the teachers of the schools that Prajayatna has been working in for the past couple of years. It was held in collaboration with CBM, our partners in Uttar Pradesh who have been working in the field of disability for more than 50 years. In this webinar, Prajayatna celebrated the joy of being a teacher, the future of the profession, and the difficulties faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 150 teachers had participated in the webinar.
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INDEPENDENCE
DAY CELEBRATION
On the 75th Independence Day this year, Prajayatna in collaboration with the Department of Education along with the help of students, BEO, teachers, School Management Committee members, senior citizens, Gram Pradhan and community members paid their respect to all the leaders who fought bravely for our nation's freedom in the past. The day was also celebrated in the Mohalla classes with the support of the youth who have been conducting classes for the children during the closure of schools.
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MOHALLA CLASSES
School closures owing to the global pandemic led to social and economic repercussions for people across communities. The disruptions add to the existing disparities within the education system, especially for the disadvantaged population. As schools continued to be closed due to the effect of the pandemic, children had to undergo not only loss of academic learning but also missed out on physical and social interactions with teachers and peers in the school which played a highly significant role in their development. To reduce the effect of the pandemic and support children’s learning in the best possible way, efforts were made to reach out to children by providing learning worksheets that were theme-based.The activities were designed in such a way that most parents and members at home could provide support and help the children in accomplishing their identified goals. Yet it was seen that all these efforts were not bearing fruit with less than 20% of the community only having smart phones. It was then decided to initiate small groups of children and thus was born the Mohalla class.
Prajayatna began Mohalla classes after holding discussions with small community groups in villages and local educated youths were identified by SMC members to work as the learning facilitators in the Mohalla classes. Prajayatna conducted Mohalla classes in 28 centers reaching out to 668 children in UP and Jharkhand.
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USING TECH FOR GOOD
Prajayatna in collaboration with Force For Good, the CSR wing of JP Morgan Chase and Company, developed the school governance app. This app has been developed for the school management committees and teachers to track the progress of their school. The app will help in tracking the progress along three parameters – learning of the students, infrastructure and its maintenance and performance of the School Management Committee.
This android application will also be used by the stakeholders themselves among other things to document their meetings and to track the implementation of their plans. Based on all the inputs, the school will be given a grade, which will in a way also assess their performance as the management committee (including teachers).
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INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PLANS FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
We here at Prajayatna believe in catering to every child's needs to help them learn in a an environment that enables them to grow at their own pace.
For this we created Individualized Education Plans for each child based on the baseline assessment data. Given above is Prajayatna conducted baseline assessment for 175 children with disability from 4 clusters Asoha and Kapseti in Chitrakoot and Bambhaura and Badrauli in Bahraich, UP.
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IMPACT STORY : DISABILITY CANNOT HOLD BACK THE CHILD FROM LEARNING
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Lakshmi studies in fifth standard of PS Ahmedganj in Kapseti cluster of Chitrakoot block.
Her parents work as daily wage labourers mostly in brick factories. Lakshmi was enrolled in school for the first standard but was found to be highly irregular, almost not going to school. It was during her second standard when Prajayatna facilitator came across her. At that time, it was learned that she was irregular and had many complaints of being a distraction in the class and Lakshmi was facing many challenges as it was not a conducive environment for her to engage in learning.
Later, with the intervention of the facilitator, she was identified as a child who needed special attention as she had an intellectual disability and also required a different kind of learning orientation.
A meeting with parents and teachers was held to understand Lakshmi better and set a direction for the right intervention. Understanding the challenges, the best
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possibilities to engage her in school as well as at home was discussed. Though intellectually, she was not at the level of Std 5, a plan to support her learning based on her needs level was planned for in the IEP.
Following this, an Individual Education Plan was also drafted. The teacher went ahead with maintaining a profile for Lakshmi and sensitizing the children in her class. This became a beginning to set a positive inclusive environment in the school. Lakshmi became regular in the class and very happy with all her friends.
Talking about Lakshmi’s improvement, Lakshmi’s mother said, “When Lakshmi was provided with the workbook by Prajayatna, all the schools were closed due to the pandemic which is why Lakshmi really liked the workbook.”
When Lakshmi started to use the workbook, the rest of the children in the house also helped her achieve her goals and in no time Lakshmi learnt basic alphabet and numbers.
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BAL VIKAS SAMITI WORKSHOP
Bal Vikas Samiti is the community structure created to support and ensure the proper functioning of the Anganwadis(AWC). Capacity building workshops for all the Bal Vikas Samiti (BVS) members of the AWCs in Yelahanka circle were conducted which was attended by BVS members, AWC teachers, and the AWC supervisor.
After key discussions about the role of BVS, the schemes, and programmes offered, the teachers and BVS members sat together as per their AWCs to identify the current issues and requirements they have.
Some key issues identified through these discussions were improving building infrastructure, awareness campaigns about the AWC and its importance to the community, and how the community can champion the maintenance and upkeep of the AWCs.
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CHILDREN'S LEARNING AND CULTURAL CENTRES
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Prajayatna has been working in Raidih block in Gumla district for the past few years. All the activities and processes of the organisation have been focused on creating an environment where different stakeholders come together and ensure that the schools are functioning in an accountable manner and thereby children are learning. This is done by building the capacities of the different institutional and community structures in order to ensure that the children’s needs are addressed.
It was in this context that the Children’s Learning and Cultural Centres (CLCC) were established, to engage children in the evenings after school. These centres were meant to create a space outside the school and their homes as well which would be managed by the community. These served as a space for children to come together and learn and do activities which were different from that of the school and would help in building their abilities such as life skills and learning more about their culture as well.
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These centres were established with libraries and provision of play materials for children to engage with each other.
Every centre had one local volunteer facilitator to guide the activities and engage with the children. The centres were supported and managed by the Self help groups in the community with a few women taking responsibility to ensure their smooth functioning. The centres had an enrollment of around 50 children each and were functioning effectively when they were then disrupted due to the pandemic from April 2020.
Since then the CLCC became places where children gathered to learn. The youth volunteers who ran these centres were trained through online and offline workshops to work with the children on their foundational literacy and numeracy skills alongwith developing their other social and life skills as well. These Centres reached out to more than 250 children.
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Relief to COVID affected person with aid from Give India
In collaboration with Give India, Prajayatna identified 15 families from the economically disadvantaged sections who have lost their primary bread winner to COVID and is now below the poverty level. A total of 13 beneficiaries out of 15 applications uploaded in the Give India app received Cash Relief Campaign benefit which really helped them overcome the highly challenging situation that they had encountered after losing their spouse.
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STATE LEVEL SDMC TRAINING
Prajayatna was part of the state level technical committee that worked on content development for training of the SDMCs and parents at the school level as well as at the cluster level across Karnataka. The training content aimed at empowering SDMCs and parents at the school level with ample understanding about the formation, roles and responsibilities of SDMCs and also the role of various community level stakeholders in development of children and school. Prajaytna played a key role in contributing facilitator’s note, posters about parents’ engagement with children to facilitate learning at home (Maneyalli Kaliyiri, Kalisiri), a video conveying the understanding about School Development Plan (SDP) and drafting of SDP at the school level and also shared the school need analysis format and other necessary formats that are used while drafting the plan.
Prajayatna also shared a local resource directory booklet that would be useful in curating information about local resources for the school that can consecutively be used in connecting with local resources while facilitating a particular content in the classroom.
Following this, the committee facilitated a virtual training for the officials of all the educational districts across Karnataka consisting of DIET representatives, BEOs, BRCs, ECOs, CRCs etc. about the training content and implementation in the districts.
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TRAINING FOR THE MASTER RESOURCE PERSONON ECCE AT THE STATE LEVEL
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Prajayatna is a part of the ECCE Technical Committee for Karnataka involved in the efforts of the Department of Education to initiate and create pre-primary sections in government schools. Prajayatna worked with the other members of the committee (consisting of other NGOs and Universities) to work on the curriculum. The existing curriculum of the Department of Women and Child Development known as Chilipili was revamped and upgraded to Chilipili+, to be used in the preschool section of the 276 Karnataka Public Schools (model schools of the Department of Education). The School Development and Monitoring Committees of around 900 schools had also initiated preschools, on demand from the community and also to ensure enrolment in Std 1.
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All the teachers of these preschools were all selected from the community and needed to be trained. Master Resource Persons from each district was selected to be trained by the technical committee who in turn would train the preschool teachers in their respective districts.
The committee members trained the master trainers from the Department of Education to equip them with knowledge and skills to implement the ECCE programme in UKG in their respective districts. Prajayatna being one of the main trainers, conducted these training sessions for more than 107 personnel staff including Master Resource Persons, Cluster Resource Persons and DIET staff from all 30 districts in Karnataka.
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Bengaluru
Prajayatna - Head Office
No. 331, 1st ‘A’ Main, 7th Block,
Jayanagar (West), Bengaluru 560 070
P: (+91) 080-26769676 ww.prajayatna.in
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