COVID-19 Response
The year 2020 brought with it immense hardships but also revealed commendable perseverance. Our efforts, and engagements with children and communities continues even in the face of the pandemic; strategies, ways and methodologies were modified, not our mission and commitment. Here is a look-back at the unprecedented year that was-
RATION RELIEF – Reorganized Energies to Provide Immediate Relief to the Most Vulnerable.
Some of the DNTs & NTs residing in the region are Bhopa, Gadiya Lohar, Moghya, Bawariya, Kanjar, Dholi, Keer, Kalbeliya, Bhanjara and Bhand communities, who are rag-pickers, blacksmiths, folk performers, cattle traders, labourers and sex workers. During CoViD-induced lockdowns, these landless labourers and migrant workers were left most vulnerable, with the inability to travel for livelihoods during periods of restriction on movement and social gatherings.
For the DNTs & NTs, the pandemic compounded their already acute socio-cultural and economic marginalisation, severely jeopardizing food security. In 2021, during the devastating second wave, GSK identified about 2000 such vulnerable families living in the area to distribute dry ration kits among. Each of the kits consisted of daily commodities (flour, pulses, oil, sugar, salt and basic spices, sooji, tea leaves, reusable cloth mask and soap) to last a household of 5 members for at least a fortnight. Including this, and relief efforts undertaken in 2020, across more than 20 locations- we have distributed over 4500 kits in total.
Dhaani Kendras: Ensuring Continuous Learning for Students of Uday Community Schools
-Academic Engagements
With the COVID-induced closure of schools, it was recognised that the longer children are kept away from learning, the harder it would be to retain them when schooling resumes; they would be increasingly likely to drop out and engage in activities to support their families- financially or otherwise, or be married off. Most students and parents were anxious for schools to reopen and wished for GSK to safely resume learning. This community-driven demand for education inspired us to set up dhaani-kendras (hamlet centres)..
In July 2020, locations for smaller yet accessible learning centres were identified across villages in the catchment area of the three Uday Community Schools, in collaboration with families. These were open spaces with sufficient light and ventilation, and located such that students and teachers didn’t need to travel long distances and risk infection. Physical distancing, wearing of masks and washing of hands at regular intervals had been ensured. Every teacher was assigned a group with which they worked on all subjects- Hindi, English, Social Science, Mathematics and Science, using the usual multi-grade, multi-level pedagogy. The success of these learning centres in keeping children gainfully engaged during the pandemic also encouraged some government school students to enroll themselves here during the interim period.
While schools reopened for classes 6-8 in January 2021 and some of the aforementioned dhaani-kendras were kept operational for younger students, their reclosure in April (second wave & onset of summer) meant another indefinite halt in the learning process. When CoViD infection numbers began showing an encouraging declining trend in the region and growing anticipation among local communities regarding the resumption of their children’s education, we had re-started our community centre-style teaching practice, undertaken by teachers in small groups throughout the day, at separate identified locations.
–Co-Scholastic Learning
GSK’s promotion of creative expression and critical thinking are rooted in its commitment to quality child-centric education. It is, therefore, that along with classroom learning, students engage in learning through an array of co-curricular activities and clubs such as pottery, carpentry, arts, cooking, kitchen gardening, dance, reading, etc. However, with the pandemic impeding access to school set-ups and the significant reduction in hours of engagement with students at the learning centres, as compared to the schools, emphasis was on creating opportunities for self-exploration and self-learning. This had been done through the introduction of enjoyable and innovative project work, such as designing the menu of your own restaurant, conducting a baazaar simulation, undertaking a community census survey, personalising identity cards, framing house rules for keeping COVID away, etc. Computers have also been introduced in the curriculum and the students have begun learning elementary applications on devices provided by GSK.
Additionally, children are encouraged to creatively express themselves in the form of reflections, poems, stories, essays and songs. These are compiled in the bi-monthly children’s magazine- ‘Morange’. The importance of this effort had been enhanced during the pandemic as perhaps the only outlet the children had to share about their unique and often, quite difficult, circumstances. Read the COVID-impact edition of Morange here.
–Dhaani Pustakalay
In response to the closing of schools halting children’s access to library books, community libraries had been set up across the relevant catchment area. These were self-run by students who managed distribution, kept record and co-ordinated with their teachers to replenish the books at regular intervals.
–Sports
At the request of the community, GSK also opened up the school playgrounds in July 2020; sports teachers facilitated activities on the fields and reinforce the necessary COVID-safety measures. Children from Uday Schools and our intervention schools are often seen competing at district, state and national levels, especially in Handball, Kho-Kho & Athletics tournaments, and our sports teams attend daily practice on the fields.
Early Childhood Care: Keeping in Touch with the Tiny Tots
With the two government Anaganwadis GSK works with in the ECCE space, and pre-primary teaching at Uday, closing in line with COVID-safety guidelines, teachers worked closely with parents, especially mothers, through regular home visits, to engage the young ones in activities that aid their motor and cognitive skills, and psycho-social development, through easy-to-comprehend assignments for parents to carry out with their wards at home.
Parents, whom our teachers also educate on the nutritional requirements of the children, monitor their growth using WHO-recommended growth charts that indicate the level of stunting and wasting among children; to that end, Anganwadi teachers and an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife had been involved as well.
Umang Programme: Continuing Efforts Towards Enhancing the Agency of Adolescent Girls
During the pandemic, the Umang Programme worked with a cohort of 28 adolescent girls at Shyampura, in an attempt to strengthen their agency through academic support, life skills development and digital literacy. These girls are highly susceptible to dropping out or being married off at an early age, especially then due to this COVID-induced break from schooling.
The months of the ‘kataai’ season of the bajra harvest require all adult members of a farmland-owning family to get involved in labour, leaving the girls to take care of home; their retention in the programme through participation at the daily sessions was heavily hampered. We attempted to bridge this gap by giving learning-oriented tasks that can be done at home itself.
An important aspect of the programme is community meetings, primarily organised to encourage families to continue educating their girl children. Since the pandemic had prevented large gatherings, these had taken the form of conversations going door-to-door and in fields where parents work.
*Read our article chronicling GSK’s endeavours, published in Azim Premji University’s magazine- Learning Curve, to better understand our efforts to reimagine and reinvent education during the pandemic, here.
Teachers’ Capacity-Building: Our teachers worked on enhancing their skills.
The times provided our teachers the opportunity to work on enhancing their digital capacities. Frequent team meetings and workshops on life skills development, by an external facilitator, and for improving their pedagogical approach in Mathematics and Science teaching, conducted by Aavishkaar, helped the teachers get equipped in using digital media and video-conferencing applications.
Engagement with DNTs & NTs: We initiated our programme with De-notified & Nomadic Tribal Communities.
The DNTs and NTs were a crucial demographic we reached out to during our ration relief drives. We continue to engage with them, with a special focus on empowering them to claim their rights and entitlements from the government- from a position of enhanced agency. Additionally, we took the first steps in our plan of setting up a number of ‘baal-manch’ at various DNT and NT inhabited localities, beginning with the Bawariya and Gadiya Lauhar bastis. We are seeking to provide the children here a structured learning environment through daily sessions, in an attempt to ease them into eventual enrolment to the teaching, playing and socialising set-ups at nearby government schools. Digital literacy sessions for young Bhopa girls, and Health camps for the Bawariya and Bhopa communities are also some of the ways our programme with DNTs & NTs evolved during the period.
