Residential Program
(affectionately known as "The Home")Introduction
The Residential Program currently houses nine children (five boys and four girls). With the intention of achieving a maximum capacity of fifteen children, the program provides a permanent family for the children.
Personnel
Two local, live-in caretakers provide daily support and stability within the home. In addition, a plethora of international and local volunteers and directors assist with day-to-day management and activities.
Education
Education is highly stressed and valued at the home. All of our children, after coming to the home not knowing a word of English (and often illiterate in their mother tongues as well), have worked extremely hard to gain admission into prestigious private schools, where they study in English medium, while also continuing with Marathi and Hindi. On a daily basis, the children attend supplementary "English Study" sessions at the home, in which they are tutored in various subjects including geography, science, math, history and civics, environmental studies, and reading comprehension. We strongly feel that a solid education with fluency in many languages is a pivotal part of our children's future success.
Enrichment Activities
Local and international volunteers devote many hours to designing enrichment projects for the children. These projects aim to complement their formal educations by providing stimulating and engaging activities that boost self-confidence, teach life skills, and foster self-motivated learning. Past and current activities include:
- Arts and Crafts: 2-D and 3-D design, photography
- Dance: Bhangra, Bharatnatayam, free-style, hip-hop
- Music: tabla, singing, recorder
- Health and Nutrition Studies
- Outdoor Sports and Play: cricket, dodge-ball (ultimate!), 4-Square, Kabadi, Kho-Kho, soccer/football, jump-rope, 50-yard dash, yoga and stretching
- Religious Diversity Education (all theologies)
- Conflict Resolution
- International Cultural Studies and Exchange
- Computers
Education Outreach Program
Introduction
The outreach program began in July 2006 to extend the service of Ashraya Initiative for Children and its community involvement. The main intention of our program is to provide material, emotional, and, primarily, educational support to young children ages 4 to 13 from our vicinity, who show the most pressing needs. They are selected on a case-by-case basis through fieldwork.
Background
The outreach children live well below the poverty line - in the bottom-most income brackets with household incomes around 30 dollars per month supporting as many as 10 to 12 people in one household. Due to these factors of poverty, these children are the most vulnerable to drugs, prostitution, domestic violence, etc.
Education
Most of the childrenin the program had dropped out of, been pulled out of, or had never been enrolled in school. We register them in a local Marathi-medium government school, as this time-intensive, bureaucratic process is often daunting for their parents or guardians, nearly all of whom are illiterate themselves. All necessary material support for these children to attend school - shoes, schoolbags, tiffins (lunch boxes), school supplies, textbooks, clothing, etc - is provided by AIC. We require that the children attend school daily (we check their attendance and meet with their teachers regularly) and come to the outreach center three days per week to participate in activities there. At present there are twenty-five girls and twelve boys enrolled in the program, and they continue to adjust to their new routines very well!
Health and Hygiene
Many of the children in our outreach program have health problems, of varying severity, and almost none have been exposed to adequate, consistent hygiene. Therefore, in addition to regular academic tutoring, the children participate in workshops on basic hygiene. We also provide health checkups at local hospitals, administer medication, and assess the healthcare needs of each child on a case-by-case basis.
Tutoring
At each outreach session, the children receive two hours of tutoring in maths, geography, history, civics, and other subjects in Marathi by our caretakers.
Activities
Once per week, the children partake in arts and crafts and activities and/or computer training led by the staff. Activities include drawing, coloring, painting, and collages.
Health Outreach Program
Introduction
The health outreach program was begun in July 2007 to extend and complement the work of the education outreach program. We have concentrated our efforts on the three key areas of education, advocacy and empowerment while providing any necessary medical treatment. In this way, we are treating the root causes of poverty (discrimination, exclusion and inequality)without neglecting the immediate and sometimes life-threatening symptoms (poor health outcomes). With the opening of our new Health Education and Resource Center in September 2007 (shared with the educational outreach program), we are able to provide more direct and immediate services, including health education classes and space for regular health "camps" bringing in experts in a variety of medical fields for free screenings and treatment.
Background
Our health outreach program is centered around the Waghri community of Yerwada, a community which is systematically excluded from most opportunities for external aid and thus remains well below every poverty line - with households of 10 to 12 people subsisting on less than $1 a day. Many of these households are home to children in our outreach program, and thus we are attempting to support the education of children in the slum by removing many of the household pressures which would keep them out of the classroom and on the street.
Education
Education is certainly important for providing essential knowledge on the causes, effects and remedies to commonly seen ailments. Classroom topics include hygiene, nutrition, communicable diseases, sexual and reproductive health and first aid and are reinforced with community-designed and -led campaigns to institute positive changes. Education coupled with the provision of basic necessities remains our most important method for preventing serious morbidity and mortality in the future.
Advocacy
The goal of our advocacy is the development of a working public health system in and around Yerwada, which will consist of all government-provided services and will treat all patients with dignity and respect, thus creating an environment as free from barriers as possible for the utilization of medical services. This involves the integration of national and state programs, non-governmental organizations and healthcare providers. In this area, we will work directly with government and non-governmental programs on behalf of those living in the busti, ensuring that promises made by the Indian government for the provision of public goods are honored.
Empowerment
We constantly strive towards a more equal society, both in terms of distribution of wealth (and health outcomes) and in terms of discrimination against marginalized groups - those of low caste, women, religious minorities, the disabled and others. This activity will take the form of workshops, counseling, advocacy (as above), information (about small business opportunities, for example) and of course our commitment to treat each person with respect and compassion regardless of gender, race, religion, place of origin, health status, language spoken, caste, income, or any other aspect.
Treatment
In addition to attacking many of the root causes of disease and poverty, we place an emphasis on the actual provision of health services through our health outreach program - acting as a DOTS provider, screening and treating participants for tuberculosis, HIV, malnutrition, etc. We also hope to institute a regular medical volunteer program, bringing in Indian and foreign volunteer medical personnel for free treatment at clinic weeks, about once a month.