DIP- Harda
AeA began a project called Community Owned and Promoted Education (COPE) in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh with the aim of strengthening the community to become self reliant. The project started in 2002 and focused on building the community’s ability to act collectively and critically analyze the prevalent elementary education system. The primary goal of this project is to promote universal elementary education by adapting the system to the immediate educational needs of the community. Some of the major activities of this project include community mobilization, training government school teachers and strengthening Village Education Development Committees.
AeA’s project covers 40 villages in Timarni Block in Harda district serving 15,883 people that includes people from SC, ST and backward caste communities. The project focuses on 40 primary schools and 14 middle schools and 9 residential schools. The houses in the project area are made of bamboo and mud. Most of the families in the villages have less than one hectare of land, thus forcing 77% of the population into seasonal migration. In many families, children over 12 years of age are involved in labour, thereby contributing to the family’s income. Seasonal migration and child labour are responsible for keeping children out of schools.
Objectives:
- to develop a shared understanding within the community of their educational needs
- to promote collective action for the universalisation of quality elementary education
- to facilitate community development through self initiatives
Strategies and Interventions:
In an effort to promote Quality Education the project was able to strengthen Village Education Development Committees and Self-help groups; mainstream school dropouts and children who had never been to school; create and strengthen children’s clubs at the village level and promote the Back 2 Basics project. Sports meets and children melas were also organized at the cluster level.
Inclusive Education strategies such as organizing assessment camps, facilitating access to aids and appliances for children with disabilities, conducting block level events on World Disability Day were successfully implemented. Training programmes were also conducted for children and adults with disabilities, parent groups, school teachers and Anganwadi workers.
Livelihood Education opportunities were created by promoting sustainable agricultural practices and by imparting livelihood training. A major part of this initiative also included linking SHGs to government departments and banks.
As part of the Women’s Education and Empowerment initiative, new SHGs were formed, gender sensitization workshops were conducted and health camps were organized. Health awareness camps were facilitated specially for adolescent girls and training imparted in developing kitchen gardens and horticulture plots.
Outcomes:
An important outcome of the project has been its ability to motivate children to return to or join schools in the villages. Those who have joined the schools have been encouraged to motivate other children to come to school. As a result children have assumed the role of ‘agents of change’ and are successfully adopting the peer-counseling method to change other children’s mindset towards education.
Another important outcome of the COPE project has been its ability to motivate women in the villages to come out and voice their concerns. For instance, when an exposure visit which would keep the women out of their homes for two whole days was organized, about 31 volunteered to participate. During the exposure visit, the women were eager and willing to participate in the activities. Their participation in this field visit is an important indicator of their growing self-confidence and willingness to occupy spaces that were hitherto unavailable to them.