Letter From Belgium

Friends! this is the report of two friends from belgium who had visited Koraput a few months back . The photographs could not be copied here . I am trying to get it pasted here afterwards. Please have a happy reading.
Report of our two days visit to Koraput (India) with UNICEF
By Anneke Claeys, Gerrit Muylaert and Ellen Joos
6th of January 2007, Belgium
Introduction

We, Anneke Claeys, Gerrit Muylaert and Ellen Joos got the great opportunity to visit the work of UNICEF in Orissa. Gerrit and Anneke are two students in their final year of a master degree in pedagogical sciences of the university in Ghent, Belgium. In this final year the students are free to do what they want for their internship, if approved by the supervisors,. Anneke and Gerrit chose to go to Bhubaneswar in India. In particular they decided to join the Ruchika Social Service Organisation for about six weeks. In a nutshell, this NGO provides education in a set of non formal schools for the poor. Besides this they also run two shelters, an AIDS project, a water sanitation project, a tailoring centre and an inclusive project. Without going in detail any further their main goal is to mainstream the homeless children and the ones from the slums into the formal educational system. The assignment was twofold. On the one hand Anneke and Gerrit were there to take a closer look at the educational methodologies and on the other hand they were there to collect detailed information about the organisation as a whole and about the inclusive project in specific. This information will be used by a Belgian doctor to collect funds from the Flemish government.
Ellen has just graduated in psychology from the university Leuven in Belgium. She went to the Ruchika Social Service Organisation to do volunteer work.
In these last weeks we overheard that there is an UNICEF department in Bhubaneswar. We decided to visit them hoping to know something more about their work in Bhubaneswar and Orissa. In stead of this we got offered a lot more than expected and ever imagined. The man we got in contact with in Bhubaneswar was Lalatendu Acharya, the communication officer. After a short introduction of each other he made the great proposal to make a two days trip to Koraput, the area were UNICEF is most active. Enthusiastic and thrilled we accepted this very nice opportunity and two days later we were on the night train, accompanied by Lalatendu, to Koraput to start our adventure.

On the way from Bhubaneswar to Koraput, Lalatendu gave us an introduction to the tribal and rich area / culture of Koraput. He explained us some difficulties they face in organizing education for the children living there. Some of the main aspects are child labour and the language issue. Because of the economical developments all over India, also the people in Koraput have troubles earning their daily bread. The children too have to help their family in earning money. This creates a great barrier for the families to send their children to school. Furthermore the tribes have been living for generations without sending their children to school. The skills that are needed to survive there (working on the land, gathering food from the forest, ...) have been passed on from generation to generation, without feeling the need for any formal education.
Further more also, in Koraput educationists have to deal with the language issue. In Koraput there are almost 44 languages living presently. This creates a special educational context. The teachers and the children have to learn to deal with this. Through the (new) language Desia, teacher training, adjusted learning materials and a lot of creativity, the class settings get form. Desia is a bit similar to Esperanto: it’s a mix of many different languages that a lot of people can understand. A last great difficulty for the children to overcome are the great distances they have to walk to get from their village to the schools. It’s the problem of accesability.

What did we do?

When we arrived in Koraput we made contact with the Chief minister of education. He welcomed us in the district and explained some things about the education. There are 2 chief ministers in Koraput concerning education: one for welfare and development, and one for education.

After this visit we went to a girls boarding near the centre of Koraput. The second day we visited two schools: one day school in the morning and one boarding school in the afternoon. In the following pages we will try to give you a clear view on what we have seen.

Day 1: Girls boarding school

In this boarding school we received a warm welcome. The headmaster of the school made it very easy for us. We could see whatever we wanted concerning education. We visited different classes: standard 1,3 and 10. Each hour the teacher changes class. For every subject there’s a different teacher.

This is standard one. The children were shy to see us. Some of them looked even scared… ‘What are these
strangers doing here?’ we saw them think.

They hold a book with stories in Desia about the daily life and nature. Unicef provides these books.
In standard 10 we introduced each other through writing our names on the black board. We had a lot of questions for each other. We talked about Belgian education and education in their school, about hair style, aims in life, food, Tuni’s visit to Belgium,…
When the school bell rang all the girls wanted to show their room and paint our nails.

After lunch break we could join the history class. The teacher translated her lesson in English for us. We learned a lot about Indian history.
The students were eager to know the answers to the questions of the teacher.

This is the school building. By each window there’s a different classroom. The school bell has just rang and the teachers are changing classroom

Day 2: Maliput:

In the morning we visited a day school. Santakar Chelapila knew this school well because of the running ‘child reporters project’. In one classroom 5 child reporters and some other students were gathered, waiting for us to shoot their keen questions. But we also were curious about their lives, education, habits,… So they didn’t get off easily.
Santakar told us about the big evolutions this child reporters went through. This is Sunita for example. She used to be very shy. Through being a child reporter, she has learned to use her ‘voice’, let her voice hear and dared to ask questions. She’s not afraid to talk to people any more, she told us.


These students are demonstrating there favourite game: Putchi.



These are some of the study materials that Unicef provided. The teachers seemed very happy with it.

In the afternoon we visited a boarding school in the neighbourhood. When we arrived the children were very curious and looked happy. We took some pictures of them and took a look in their - through our eyes - poor and dark appearing sleeping rooms. Their classroom changes at night in a sleeping room.

The children planned to do a performance in their village, but we got an avant première. This is the tribal dance of the boys. They try to achieve harmony in their dance. To build a good tower, you need all the people to make one. They have to join their forces to create something bigger.





This is the garden of the school. Before school starts children work for one hour in the garden.
They have to cultivate some vegetables because the donations they receive for food are insufficient.


Child friendly toilets, sponsored by UNICEF.


What did we see? Some reflections.

In the two days we visited Koraput, we have seen amazing initiatives and amazing children. It has broadened our view on education in Orissa. Until now, we only visited non-formal slumschools in Bhubaneswar. The visits in these two days enriched us, but were also very short. This means that our observations are just a random picture and the reflections cannot cover the real situation.

The welcomes we received when we visited the schools and the chief ministers were every time very warm and nice. Also Lalatendu and Santakar made our stay in Koraput very pleasant. We want to thank them very much for this.

UNICEF detected some issues impacting education in Koraput. Through our visit, we could indeed observe some of these problems.
As already mentioned the language issue was very prominent. As outsiders it was almost impossible to notice the language related problems, but it became more clear when we talked to the teachers, Santakar and Lalatendu about this. The teachers mother tongue is Oriya. But the almost all children speak a different tribal language plus a shared one, called Desia. The teacher speaks no Desia, or only just a little bit. This is for us a very strange situation. Santakar told us that the children can understand 50% or more from the message in the lessons spread by the teacher. This is not even close to the 90 – 95% which we are used to. Some children on the one hand do understand some Oryia, but on the other hand lack the proper knowledge to express themselves through this language. In this way we find the interventions of UNICEF by way of translating some storybooks in Desia, training the teachers in this language and also in some skills to cope with this specific situation, a very good initiative. Children are being motivated and interested to come to school. Santakar told us that some of the children used to be bored in school, also this has been changed. The Desia books and the Desia language ability of the teachers can function as a bridge to close the existing educational gap.
The second difficulty we could experience was the accessibility which the children have to face every day. Here for we find the boarding schools a good initiative, almost a must, for the children. Although one problem has become manageable in this way, another one arises. The girls who we talked to the first day experienced home sickness once in a while. They miss their families very badly. We can understand this must be a very difficult situation for them. Hopefully they can find the needed support and comfort among each other and the staff of the school.

In general, for as far we were able to observe, we found the children very interested in what was going on in the classroom. A difference with Belgium on this matter, is that the Belgian children we know add some critical questions to their interested attitude. The children we observed in Koraput were very eager to know the answers on the questions of the teachers, but didn’t ask any questions themselves. Was this due to the language problem or due to a different attitude? According to the teacher it was the first factor, according to us it is a combination of the two.

Related to the previous observation, we are very happy to report to you about the ‘child reporters project’. In this project children observe and report on events and issues affecting them, such as drinking water shortages, the absence of teachers in their schools, their parents etc. It begun with 110 child reporters from 100 schools. There are 1500 childreporters in 286 schools today. When we heard of it the first time, we couldn’t really believe it. Through our nine weeks of stay in India, we could not notice (except once during a child parliament day organised by Ruchika) that the ‘giving voice to the children’ movement had also started in India. As future pedagogues and supporters of this movement we were very delighted to see this project doing so well. We could really see a difference between the children who were involved in this project and the children who were not. The childreporters surprised us with their assertive way of asking questions and making conversation.

We mentioned also another interesting difference between Belgian education and the education we saw in India and Koraput. We feel that because of the high amount of Indian children who are not going to school regularly, the teachers (if they want to do a good job) are almost forced to make their education interesting. Otherwise most of the children just won’t come to school. Because of the more compulsory character of education in Belgium, teachers are less motivated to make their lessons interesting and to create a willingness within the child to come to school and to build the awareness within the minds of the parents that education does matter.



To sum up


And thanks for everything!