The Concept

"Gali School" is the most extensive and ambitious education programme of Navjyoti India Foundation. It provides preschooling to children in the age-group 4 to 8 years, with a view to prepare them to get admitted in nearby regular schools. As the name suggests, “Gali School” is a school in the Galies i.e. by lanes. Starting in 1998 with 5, the organization ran more than 100 such schools in the slums of Yamuna Pushta at one point of time.

"Gali School" is an endeavor to bring education to the doorstep of children. The emphasis has been on catering to the slum and impoverished children. Our experience in the Yamuna Pushta slum community suggests that more often than not, the distance between the school and the target children becomes intractable, more so in the case of female child, keeping them at bay with the education. Even where the school is accessible, for every child, who goes to school, 30 other roam around in the galies. The abundance of children in the galies precipitated the idea of opening schools in the Gali itself. Therefore, rather than trying to take every child to school we brought the school to the children, in their friendly neighborhood Gali and hence named it as "Gali School".

The concept of "Gali School" is innovative also because of following reasons:

• Economically viable: Gali School does not require much infrastructural support.
• Very high sustainability: since the recurring cost is very low, the problems of sustainability do not pose big threats.
• Very high visibility in the community: the ubiquity of Gali schools, literally in the every nook and corner of the streets, has a very high potential of awareness generation.
• Involvement of the community: when the school is set up before somebody’s house, it naturally arouses his inclination to facilitate such an effort.

Holistic Education – "School ke baad School"

Background

The organisation has been actively involved in following up of these mainstreamed children on regular basis every year. However, it has come to the notice that these children require support and guidance in order to ensure that their interest in studies continue and they do not drop out from schools due to reasons like

a. overcrowding in government schools,
b. lack of parental guidance and motivation to continue,
c. lack of individual attention by school teachers etc. Thus, it has been planned that remedial education classes will be started for these children in order to create meaningful impact on them.

The present project, therefore, seeks to reinforce the learning of children in schools and offer them a platform for laying a strong foundation on concepts taught in these early classes.

Through offering tutorials on subjects requiring extra help, the project envisions to ensure higher retention rates and lower drop out rates especially in the primary levels. It would be achieved through adopting two fold strategies.

1. First offer them coaching in subjects to reinforce their learning in schools
2. Secondly, keep a check on their regularity in schools and provide necessary counseling to them or their parents and even to teachers depending upon the need.

Besides, efforts are directed to ensure their holistic development by offering them avenues of extra curricular activities including sports, music, library and exposure visits. Nutrition would also be provided to these children on regular basis.

 Achievement Highlights

The support of SMPF to the "Gali School" project began in the year 2003 in the slums of Yamuna Pushta. However, in the month of April 2004, the slums were demolished and people were relocated to Bawana and Holambikalan resettlement colonies in Delhi. SMPF, though continued its support and 20 "Gali School" were opened in these areas.

So far, SMPF supported "Gali School" have reached out to almost 4000 children who have been provided with the early childhood education who otherwise, would have been into deviant activities.

From the year 2010-11, the support of SMPF has been benefitting the passed out beneficiaries of the "Gali School" who are now studying in the M.C.D. run Primary Schools and continuing to build and strengthen their foundation of knowledge.

The areas of support from SMPF includes Teaching, Learning material, Training and Capacity Building of staff, Nutrition for the children, Exposure Trips, Health Care facilities for these children and running cost including manpower, set up etc.

Activities at Gali Schools & School ke baad School

1. Quality education: The children are imparted education as per the prescribed curriculum. The teachers use innovative methods of teaching to make the process as interesting and as effective as possible.

• - General awareness,
• - Environment Education &  
• - Moral Values form an integral part of the curriculum.

From the last four years, special emphasis has also been laid on assessing learning outcomes of these children at the beginning and end of academic session.

2. Health care: Every child covered through the programme, undergoes health check up once in two months in order to detect early prevalence of illness and screen basic health and hygiene index.

• - Individual health monitoring cards are prepared for each child and progress is maintained   accordingly.
• - Children requiring special attention are attended accordingly.
• - Health talks are also being conducted on hygiene issues at the time of health check ups by the   doctors and health workers.
• - Vaccination & booster doses to all children.
• - Haemoglobin test conducted twice a year – once at the start and the other at the end of the year,   thereby measuring the change.

3. Extra Curricular activities:

• - Sports,
• - Music,
• - Library classes are also organized for these children for which a specific curriculum is followed too.

4. Exposure visit: All the children are taken for exposure visits to various historical or other important places twice a year. Discussions and debriefing sessions are organized after the trip. Special ways of recording feedback including drawings, organizing quiz competitions etc are worked out.

5. Nutrition: Since the conditions in the areas are still very difficult and livelihood a major concern, nutrition of children is an ignored area in the families. Thus, nutrition package which includes fruits like apple and banana and (or) the iron fortified biscuits are provided to all children on all working days.

6. PTMs: The parents-teachers meetings are conducted every month for each class issues related to child welfare. The agenda for PTMs and methods of taking sessions are predecided and lesson plans are prepared accordingly.

7. Strengthening: Community ownership – School supervision committees are formed and capacitated over the period of time to participate meaningfully in the programme and doing advocacy for improving educational services provided by the state.

The Impact so far

1 - Enrollments

The project has been able to reach out to close to 4000 children till now in the span of five years in "Gali School".

Dr. Kiran Bedi handing over ‘Navjyoti Gratitude Award’ to
Shri G.N. Palriwala, Chairman Trustee at New Delhi on 27th March 2012

2010-11 – 250 children who passed out from the “Gali School”, graduated in the SMPF class I programme. And 2011-12, the same batch moved into class II with more confidence. The nation building and live changing journey continues….

2.   Impacting girl child Education

The most important achievement of "Gali School" has been in the area of girl-child education. It has falsified the generally accepted notion that female education is directly proportional to the economic and social advancement of the families. Girls have outnumbered boys in almost all the years.

3.   Mainstreaming
Enrollment in our formal schools has also increased as a cascading effect of "Gali School", movement. More and more number of children are being mainstreamed every year from "Gali School".

4.   Community participation

"Gali School" movement has, though endowed us with greater responsibility; nonetheless it has given us a sense of achievement, which is difficult to contend with. It has brought about a radical change in the attitude and perception of the parents and the community about the education of children. It is manifest in the fact that community itself has come forward for this cause. Parents are providing infrastructural support to the programme and also arranging pleasure trips for the children.

More than 80,000 families have been reached so far…

“Transforming Lives…”