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 Hi, my name is
Akbar Ali. I am the project manager of Jahangirpuri;this is a resettlement
colony funded by the Delhi Archdiocese Social Services. The name of the Social
Services organisation is Chetamalaya. It works in 40 projects in eight
resettlement areas, providing non-formal education, creche facilities, formal
education, vocational training, community health programmes, income generating
programmes and credit co-operators. The informal education works with 3 to 5 year olds preparing them for entry into the structures of formal education. The non-formal education programme is mainly for beggars. It trains them for a year or two with the hope that they will then go into mainstream education. Children up to sixteen years of age can take part in this programme. Children that do not want to go into the formal set-up there can be opportunities for them to enter vocational training. In this redevelopment colony there are also facilities for slow learners in the remedial classes, giving them extra support to help them escape from their exclusion. Each colony has a manager and under the manager there is an animator and then there are project workers. There are 40 staff members working within the different blocks of this colony. On the whole there are over 105 staff working throughout the regions, where Chetamalaya works within the Archdiocese of Delhi. Within the pre-school age group there are over 450 children. The organisation operates 10 centres within the colony providing pre-school education. Another 300 children are provided with basic education. Children at the age of 14 can take part in this. Again these children are rag pickers and this provides them with an opportunity to look beyond the confines of dirt and muck, to look at the possibilities. The remedial coaching provides opportunities for 90 children in 3 different centres. These are children who are not yet up to the standard for formal education. The support is given to help them attain such standards. In this area of Jahangirpuri there are many signs of hope and optimism. This can be clearly seen in the vocational training units. 65 children take part in the embroidery classes in the 3 different centres and more children are involved in the knitting classes. Training is seen as an important aspect of the work that is done here. The workshops provided rag pickers to gain employment after a 1-year programme. However, the emphasis is not only on literacy. There is also a strong focus on community health programmes. This involves working with families and educating them about birth control, providing health support for mother and child. Equally, within health awareness there are programmes that speak about the nightmare of AIDS. The success of the project can be found in the faces of the people as they engage in the different programmes in the various centres throughout this poor, spare, kilometre radius. Children with a gleam in their eyes and a smile developing each day are testimony to this project. |
