Providing Inclusive Education To Migrant and Urban Poor Children In Bangalore’s Slums
Background
Bangalore slums have some of the most poverty-stricken populations in the city. These migrants belong to already marginalised communities in their home states like Tamilnadu, Andhra, Telangana and Northern region of Karnataka. Migration to Bangalore for these communities is under the worst conditions. But urban poverty is complex where stable income is required to sustain shelter, food and family.
Most migrant families belong to Dalit communities and are found doing menial jobs like rag-picking, construction work, coolie or domestic work, selling small items in the streets and traffic signals or even begging when they have no work. Without proper living facilities, they do not have access to cooking food and are found sleeping in small huts with congested places and such. They have no access to proper water supply or drinking water and sanitation. Living in congested rooms or near dumping yards and frequent eviction makes their conditions extremely harmful to women and children. They lack safety and are subject to constant abuse and exploitation with no means of safeguarding their rights. Education is a far cry for most of these children. This way migrant children lose out on opportunities and get left behind by the system and get trapped in a vicious cycle of abuse and harm.
Our Programme
We aim to educate and protect children and vulnerable women of migrant communities in Bangalore. We work with high-risk migrant groups living in Basalingappa Slum, Dhobi Garden, Kodanarama Slum, Janakiram Layout, KHB Quarters and Vinobanagar. We run three Child Care and Education Centres (Children Activity Centers) of which two are in Anganwadi centres and one is in a private school. These centres are in Janakiram Layout, Vinibanagar and Kacharakanahalli. Here children come after-school hours for tuition and extra coaching. Each child is given individual attention and support to cope with their lessons.
We have begun a new Child Care and Education Centre (Children Activity Center) in Kodandara Slum by request of the migrant community in the area who have given us a small shed to conduct our classes from. We already have 30 children attending classes here. The new centre is not currently conducive to teaching children and the area has no access to electricity. We need to build a temporary structure with solar lamps so that the centre can be reasonably comfortable for the children to sit for 2-3 hours at a stretch.
In addition, we run a Digital Learning Centre centrally located at our office in Kariyanapalya, that provides a digital learning environment to migrant children from around the six slums, where multiple disciplines are taught with the help of several multimedia educational aids. Here our students from the other Child Care and Education Centres also attend to use the digital learning environment across multiple disciplines. Teachers act as facilitators and explain concepts and facts and provide teaching aids like Next Education Interactive Flat Panel, YouTube videos, the KSEEB Website, etc. E-learning and Video learning through Teach Next Interactive Flat Panel (IFP) make the teaching-learning process both interesting and interactive and help develop the skills, knowledge and creativity of the students.
We run Child Collectives and Adolescent Girls Collectives for children to have a safe environment to express their concerns and learn about child rights, health and life skills like better communication skills. The groups also share and celebrate their cultural backgrounds with one another which helps build a sense of identity. These Collectives meet once in a month ideally on Saturdays.
We have over 250 children learning in our centres. Few of these children come from single-mother homes that struggle to keep them in school and are too busy to help them with school work. We need to provide the children with nutritional snacks without which the children either miss out on the meal or skip the class so they can go home and eat after school.
We also run a week-long school enrolment campaign in the six slum areas to minimize school dropout and have young children enroll in their local Anganwadi or public schools. We conduct a rally and home visits that help us understand and mitigate problems that keep them from school and create awareness about the importance of education.
Our Impact
We have been running our centres for two and half years now, i.e., since August 2021. (Two Activity Centres from August 2021, Other Activity Centres are started gradually, and Digital Centre from April 2021) Ninety-five percent of our students are above average in their schools now. While their academic performance has clearly improved, we also see that a lot of personality development has taken place. Our students are more active participants in class, they have shown a great difference in their confidence levels and raise their voices and never shy from participating in community and school-based activities.
These were children who were never accounted for or taken seriously since they were migrants, but now they have built a strong sense of community and belonging. Parents of our children feel more secure about their lives after seeing their children improve and make decisions that help stabilise their children’s futures.
Our Urgent Requirement
We seek support for
a) The four Child Care and Education Centres (Children Activity Center) which cover costs like staff, teacher’s honorarium, stationary and books for children, nutritional snacks, school enrolment campaign and children’s day celebrations and support for building a temporary structure and solar lamps for the new centre. This will work up to approximately INR 16,00,000 per year.
b) Running the Digital Learning Centre as well as increasing the capacity to allow more students at a time. These expenses include teacher’s salary, new computers, chairs and tables for increasing the capacity of the centre and general maintenance. This will cost approximately INR 13,00,000.
c) We need an emergency fund for children of single mothers who struggle to pay school fees which results in their child being kept out for their exams. This is a situation that we have faced several times where we are required to quickly provide some support to prevent the child from missing their exams. We request a revolving fund of INR 5,00,000 that we can use to give zero-interest loans to single mothers whose child’s school fees have not been paid.
Our Profile
Ananya Education and Empowerment Trust was started on 26th February 2016 by Managing Trustee/Director, Y. Mariswamy who was the Former Chairperson of the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Member of Justice N K Patil High Court Committee on Child Malnutrition and also The former member of Karnataka State Child Labour Eradication Project Society of Labour Department. Y.Mariswamy is also a State and National Awardee for Protecting and Promoting Child Rights and Social Work. Ananya has been working in partnership with the government and community to help to provide better health and nutrition, education and protection to migrant children and pregnant women and lactating mothers in the migrant community and also Urban poor families. Ananya works with migrant and slum dweller communities in Basalingappa Slum, Dhobi Garden, Kodanarama Slum, Janakiram Layout, KHB Quarters and Vinobanagar. This is a video recording of the Children’s Day celebration that took place last year. This may give you a sense of our programs.
We also run a nutrition program where we identify children with severe to moderate acute malnourishment in these slums and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers who require additional nutrition and medical support for a safe pregnancy, birth and child development. We work alongside ASHA workers to help these children and women to access healthcare and entitlements that can help improve their health.
Contact
#36, 1st Cross, 2nd Main, Thippanna Layout,
St Thomas Town, Kariyannapalya,
Lingarajapuram, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India - 560084
Phone: +91 63665 04899
Email: contact.ananyatrust@gmail.com
Help us raise funds for our specific needs.
ANANYA EDUCATION AND EMPOWERMENT TRUST (AEAET) was established on the 26th of February in 2016 as a non-profit organization. It was founded by a dedicated group of individuals who are passionate about child rights and social work. Their personal experiences, as well as their direct involvement with children, served as the driving force behind their decision to come together and create a positive impact on the lives of disadvantaged children and communities through this non-profit venture. The primary goal of AEAET is to strive towards enhancing the quality of life for underprivileged children, women, unorganized laborers, and slum residents, regardless of their religion, caste, or community. They have a particular emphasis on migrant children and families who migrate to Bengaluru in search of better livelihoods and opportunities for a brighter future. In the urban context of Bengaluru, migrant children and families are among the most vulnerable, especially in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Therefore, AEAET has made it a priority to intervene and engage with children aged from 6 months to 18 years, providing them with support and facilitating opportunities for the development of their full potential.
AEAET has been operating in the urban slums for the past seven years, starting in 2016. These specific slums were chosen due to the fact that a large percentage of the inhabitants are migrant families originating from North Karnataka and various other states, who unfortunately endure a woeful and distressing existence.
At Ananya Education and Empowerment Trust (AEAET), we strongly advocate for the provision of equal opportunities to all children, ensuring their overall growth and fostering digital literacy.
Contact Person: Y Mariswamy
Email: ymariswamy.directorananya@gmail.com
Phone: 9980590985
A big thank you to all those who have donated on this page.
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