SCHOOL PROGRAMME IS TAKEN TO URBAN SLUMS

In a significant first, Hand in Hand has taken its child labour elimination and education programme to urban slum children. A Residential Bridge Camp (RBC) was inaugurated at Semmancheri on 13 March 2009, our fifth residential school, but the first for out-of-school children from urban slums.

The camp, started with 20 children mobilized from Chennai slums,  is being supported by a grant from Mr Peje Emilsson, an educationist from Sweden. Rent-free premises for the camp have been allotted by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, and the Indian government’s universal education programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), will meet 60 per cent of the running costs.

Hand in Hand has identified children from three different locations in and around the urban limits of Chennai -- Tondiarpet, Saidapet, and Kasimedu. Most have disturbed family lives -- fathers prone to drinking, with irregular jobs, and with the mothers being both homemakers and bread-winners. For most of these children, life has been difficult. They have seen the worst of city life, they use bad language, are unruly and undisciplined, and some even have a background of substance abuse.

It will be a challenge to bring these children into school and ensure they pass out and find employment. Hand in Hand hopes to use this school as a pilot to see how best to extend such projects to other city slums.

The Child Labour Elimination Programme is one of our major initiatives under which Hand in Hand identifies child labourers and all out-of-school children through thorough village surveys. Children are then enrolled in our own residential bridge schools and transit schools, or directly into government schools. The students, who spend up to 18 months in our bridge schools, are subsequently mainstreamed into government schools.

Cities in India have seen phenomenal growth in recent years. On the one hand, there are posh apartments housing professionals earning four-figure salaries, and then there are those who can barely manage to eke out a living in crowded hutments under bridges and on pavements. Here, the adults are mostly engaged as casual labour, in construction work or have other low-paying jobs as tailors, washermen, rag-pickers, dishwashers, and cleaners. Most women are engaged as domestic help. Life is tough, and alcoholism, domestic violence and street crime are common.

Many children are unable to attend school regularly as they are counted upon to supplement the meagre family income. Children working in restaurants and teashops, or as errand-boys and cleaners, are a common sight in the city. Then there are those who simply loiter around, and fall into drug trafficking or petty crime. Many are left at home to look after younger siblings and do household chores. Most of these children have been in and out of juvenile delinquent homes. Under these circumstances, children have no motivation to go to school, nor are the parents capable of enforcing discipline. Even those enrolled in school play truant and defy the teachers.

It is in this setting that the Hand in Hand RBC steps in to take these slum children within its fold. The idea is to remove the children from their hopeless and destructive environment and bring them into a place where they will be motivated to learn and aspire for a better future. The residential teachers help not only with academics but also groom them in hygiene, sanitation and good habits, and inculcate social responsibility and civic skills.

The camp aims not only at enrolment of out-of-school children but also seeks to ensure that once mainstreamed, these children pass the Class 10 public exam so that they can find good jobs. But in an urban setting, retaining the children in the bridge school itself presents a huge challenge. Ensuring that they are mainstreamed successfully later requires constant mentoring. That is why it is important to build social awareness and sensitise the local community to take responsibility for enrolment, retention and education of their children.

Hand in Hand is fortunate to get unstinted cooperation from the government in this endeavour. Sarva Siksha Abhiyan has extended support to also training teachers at the school in the Alternative Innovative Education (AIE) system, an innovative teaching methodology that brings students up to date with the basics through Activity Based Learning (ABL) cards. SSA has agreed to provide the ABL cards and to help with regular monitoring.

Hand in Hand will bring in education consultants to conduct periodic capacity building training for RBC teachers. To ensure personal attention, a teacher-student ratio of one-to-ten will be maintained.