Pune and Bombay
Action in cooperation with Interaide
Project presentation
Beneficiaries : 2830 children
Context : the shanty towns in Bombay as in Pune, are located in the middle of an urban area and are the stage for intense, informal activity. Within this context, the future of the children living there depends on the abilities they acquire, their educational level and their family environment.
Action :
- Okworld is particularly committed to a crèche network that looks after very young children while the mothers work.
- Early learning workshops training parents for their educational role for 452 very young children.
- Supporting 39 semi-independent nursery school classes to foster pre-schooling for 980 children.
- Extra tuition for 1250 pupils in state primary schools to reduce scholastic failure.
Dynamic Family Support (AFD) for 2158 families to help the material and human environment progress.
Project life
January 2007 : Based on a leter received from the local responsible...
Early learning
Since July 2006, 12 groups (compared with 9 in the previous six months) of mothers have been operating with 228 children, as the Vikas partner is now developing these workshops in the areas where its family support team works. Mothers are taking part in the weekly meetings more and more often thanks to a more precise targeting, focusing on the importance of the 0 to 3 age period for children’s future capacities and on the decisive role that mothers can play during this period (50% of these families are also being monitored by the Family Support team).
The programme emphasises the importance of participatory activities: language development through describing images; play sessions using household utensils; nutritional recipe competitions; health logs kept by the mothers themselves to keep track of the progress of their children.
In order to increase the impact, the family monitors receive training every month to enhance their self-confidence and their communication skills.
Crèche
With a new crècheset up, the project is now supporting seven small crèches with 128 children. By December2006, 3 new ones will opened by our partners, Annapurna and Sneh Deep. All of them are run on the basis of financial independence which should gradually grow from 25% to 100% thanks to the subscriptions paid by parents. We have drafted a guide for opening crèches this year, focussing on key criteria of quality and child safety.
