Mass Education

Mass Education undertook a comprehensive education programme known as “Basic Education for all” to provide functional Pre-Primary, Primary, Higher Secondary, Adult Literacy and skills training to its group members in urban and rural areas for poor.

Mass Education’s mandate is to improve opportunities for young children, street and working children aged zero to eighteen years living in circumstances of social, economic, and cultural and environment disadvantage. Children who are denied from their dignity, rights and equal opportunities from all spheres of life, their families and community they live in. This implies access of health care, education, social and economic justice, a sustainable natural environment and opportunities for self reliant of a child and his family as a whole.

Mass Education is concerned with young children’s overall development and therefore promotes and implements a holistic approach including education, health, nutrition and economic sustainability:

• Believes that the growth and development of a child depends upon his parents and therefore actively highlights empowerment of parents especially mother’s capacity to support them, to support their children.

• Gives high priority to participating approach, involvement of community in all process of development and decision-making, therefore actively promoted the need based programmes, which are initiated by the community for development.

• Also believes in creating people’s institution and local strength for sustainable development and therefore provides encouragement and skill training for building up local organisations, leadership capacity of resources and working in solidarity with networking.

Moreover, concentrating on the development of young children and their environment will have a preventing and lasting effect and will generate sustainable benefits.

1. School Support:

In order to achieve the goal, Mass Education undertook to provide basic education, functional adult literacy skills to its group members and rendered educational facilities to their children through formal and non-formal primary schools run by Mass Education. Since the year 1978 and today 16000 children of age group 4 to 18 years are enrolled through our education project support.

Total 12 academic years of education are imparted to the children. Academic session of the school began in the month of May each year. They are taught basic numeric, literacy, arithmetic, history, geography, environment, science, social studies and hand work as extra curriculum. They learn songs, dance, mimes, sports, drawing, etc. to upgrade the physical and mental strength to integrate in the main stream. After the standard of Class-VIII, they are encouraged to attend technical education for skill development. They are also encouraged to do social work like village and neighbourhood cleaning, talk about water management, health and sanitation, social plantation to create social forest to develop community assets and improve the capacity building and confidence development. In order to be a good citizen leadership quality are developed through seminar discussion rally among the children on the issues of child labour, early marriage and stop violation on children to upgrade their physical and mental strength so that they are integrated in the main stream of the society.

Children of 4-5 years are admitted in the Mass Education School or to the government run primary or high school. It has been also noticed that in the past, girl child are enrolled more in the school. Dropout children are also brought under the school and technical training with special attention. Campaign against early child marriage has influenced parents and the girls to continue their study until they become adult or become physically and mentally mature.

For the new session (2009-10) children of all classes were helped with textbooks, notebooks and school uniform. The schools were supplied with the teaching materials like charts, reference books, and library books, black boards, sports equipments and computer.

All the schools are situated in the district of South & North of 24 Parganas, Bankura, Purulia, and Kolkata districts of West Bengal. Teachers are recruited locally and provided training to those by Mass Education.

In each school Mass Education have set up a village committee to do social audit of the education activities, community activity, cultural activities and participation of all children in education up to the age of 15 years so that child marriage and trafficking of children can be checked.

2. Child Protection Activities:

Mass Education is running a child protection center at Atasura for girls and boys. 250 children of age between 4-18 years are staying in this center. They are all from the family of most vulnerable situation from Kolkata slums and villages of West Bengal. Most of the children living in this center were from difficult circumstances, sexually harassed, abused, children from sex workers either without or single parents.

These children are provided with day & night care under the residential arrangement in proper room with electricity, water, sanitation, bed, playground, musical and cultural facilities, furniture and trained house and teaching staffs. During their stay in the residence they are provided with basic education up to the standard X Class and with technical knowledge to learn about different livelihood trade including agriculture so that when they are 18 years old and go out of the center can start small enterprise on their own to become self-sustainable. Trained staffs and teachers are not only preparing them for basic education but also make them improve their livelihood and intelligence.

3. Exposure and social activities:

Mass Education organises “child to child” programme, under which cleanliness of village roads, canals, ponds, village school, even to clean their own homes are important activities organised. Plantation of trees on the roadside, canal side and in their own field is part of the environment education. Children themselves are organizing discussion, seminar workshops and rallies on the issues of safe drinking water, use of compost manures, use of toilet, basic knowledge of hygiene and general knowledge of epidemics in the community so that they learn about the basic practices of daily life.

Children and teachers together are exposed to do village survey, visit to natural forest, hills, seaside, town or big city, development centres, industry etc. to gain broader knowledge about the society.

Teachers were brought in each month to undergo teachers training and workshop for three to seven days each in order to share the experiences and learned new techniques to improve education methods so that the quality education is imparted.

6 Youth Camps were held where youths came in groups in the workshop to share their teenage problems and how to improve their skills and knowledge about social activities. Adolescent problem and the need for higher education combined with technical education were also discussed.

Educational tours were organized for 200 youths to broaden their geo-political knowledge and improve socio-cultural integration. They have visited Sundarbans, Kolkata city, Sea beach in Digha and Forest in Purulia.

4. Children’s Festival:

In order the improve their physical and mental growth and cultural environment, Mass Education organises cultural festival, annual sports, educational tour drawing, essay and debate competition, kite festival and many other social and cultural events through out the year.

Mass Education like all other years organised children’s cultural festival at the same time to the entire project site. In each school for 3 days cultural festival were organized. All children of different schools participated in the massive gathering to perform their talents on art and sports activities. They share with their fellow friends and created public opinion” to be concern for the children”.

On the 17th September 2009, 2000 children gathered at the Maidan (Ground) opposite to Victoria Memorial of Kolkata city to express the solidarity with the children to celebrate kite festival. Children from different parts of Kolkata slums, street and the villages came together to express their rights to enjoy, play, study and be in the mainstream like other children. Most of these children were from the difficult circumstances. Many of them are working in the restaurant, factory, and houses, packaging industry and even making kites, which they never have the opportunity to fly.

5. Awareness & Exposure:

For broader awareness and campaign among the children and the public, Mass Education organised rallies, seminars, workshops and publishes documents on the issue of children’s problems and their rights. Campaign to abolish child labour and protection of the children against all forms of child abuses are remain the main concern for the organisation. During this year several Parents meetings were held to discuss about the education for their children specially girl child and the difficulties they face. Awareness programme were also organised among the children are in the fields of Health, Nutrition, Education, Value Formation, Family and Community Assistance.

6. Health initiative:

Through the curative and preventive health care is provided to the children and their families. Preventive care includes a mandatory annual health and dental check up for all children with special emphasis on the health care of adolescents and women, distribution of hygiene kits and mosquito nets to all children, administration of de-worming tablets to the children and their families and in general creating health awareness especially reproductive health amongst the children and their families. Proper sanitation facilities like construction of latrines and bathing rooms have been provided for the families along with the concrete house floors and installation of deep tube-wells for safe drinking water, cleaning of ponds in the community, rainwater harvest, which has been instrumental in preventing stomach and respiratory diseases. Regularly adolescent sexual and reproductive health, community health and water management classes and awareness camps are held to improve the knowledge and health situation. Curative health clinic and free medicine distribution and emergency medical care are also provided.

Distribution of material benefits to children and their families, home and latrine repairs and construction, installation of solar lights, conventional electric connection for home lights, water projects in the community.