Empowering Through Education

Empowering Through Education

While most children are busy in the race to make it to the top schools in town, too many amongst them miss out on the life changing opportunities that going to even a basic school can bring them.

Hundreds of them may have never seen the inside of a classroom. Hundreds of others must have dropped out due to lack of resources and facilities. Robbed of the chance to learn, the future of many of these children dwells in darkness. Education is the only thing that can offer them hope and stability.

Toaddress this issue and ensure that these disadvantaged children have a chance to fulfill their potential by receiving better educationand write their own future, Ruchika Social Service Organisation has been working on providing an alternative education system to the underprivileged students in the city. Launched in 2010, the new system of learning known as ‘Friendship Education’ has been providing education to many such students.

‘Friendship Education’ is a remedial education system, designed mainly for underprivileged students, slow learners and dropouts. In the initial days, the programme had only 100 to 150 students enrolled for it across different places in the city. Seven years since its initiation, the number of students has increased to 2500 studying at 65 centres actively working to impart education to these children. Not only are they having access to education, they are also showing tremendous progress and improvement in their learning patterns.

Among those that have been fortunate to reshape their lives by education is 11- year-old Rashmi Bindu Behera. Now studying in the 7th Standard at Baramunda Housing Board Colony Project UGME School, she has been a consistent topper student in her class for three consecutive years.

“Both my father and mother are daily wage labourers, so, could not afford my education. I had to discontinue my education for financial distress. But then I was selected through a survey conducted by Ruchika Social Service Organisation, and was able to continue my education again,” said Rashmi. “Convinced with proper counselling to continue my education, I got readmitted into school with financial assistance.Thereafter, appropriate guidance has helped me further to be successful in academics.”

This alternative learning programme has been benefitting many such children like Rashmi. A resident of Godam Sahi slum, Dumduma, Barsha Nayak of 4th Standard was recently awarded for her outstanding performance in school. “I am the fourth child of my parents and they could not afford to send me to school. My father is a carpenter and my mother, works as a maid. With a meagre income to manage the entire household, the share of their earnings kept aside to fund education was used up for sending both my brothers to school,” stated Barsha.

Sharing with MCL how Friendship Education helped her go to school, she said, “To fulfil my desire for learning, I joined a two hourstutorial session held regularly in our slum. Seeing me perform well there, my parents were finally convinced to send me to school.”

While Barsha had a keen interest to study, slow learners like Rudranarayan Nath from Balakati have also shown remarkable improvement in academics after joining the programme. A student of 7th standard, he has secured 86% in his class examination, a dramatic progress from his earlier scores of 30% to 33 %.

Commenting on Rudranarayan’s improvement, his mother Sabitri Devi said, “We always wanted him to do well in school. However, for limited financial resources, he wasn’t being able to perform well. But thenafter joining the Friendship Education programme, gradual improvement inhis studies was visible.”

With several such success stories of students who have been able to enjoy the privilege of education again, Programme Manager of Ruchika’s Education Programme, Benudhar Senapati said, “As children are considered the greatest assets of mankind, we are responsible to create the best possible learning atmosphere for them. Every child needs an environment to grow, learn, enjoy and discover themselves without any impediments, fear orintervention. This program has experimentedwith alternative schooling method and has found it to bequite successful in making children learn faster and creatively. Hence, the name “Friendship Education”.

“Again, this is not an entirely new thought or concept. It is a combination of theories of many modern educationists of the world, who believe that education is a natural process and its purpose is to tap and evolve the latent potentials of the child in the same way as in nature a tree evolves from a seed.These educationists trust that freedom is the means of development and creativity. Friendship Education also talks about trust and passion, mutual help and cooperation, sharing and caring, harmony and joy, collectivity and support. It creates a win-win situation and endorses mutual respect and value of others’ attitude,” he explained.

“The good news about Ruchika’s education system has been its success in enrolling 98% children into government schools and limiting the rate of dropouts to only five percent. A novel initiative, the education system innovated and introduced this strategy in many remedial centres. As a result, the students enrolled are learning faster while enjoying their studies. Their academic performance has also been enhanced incredibly, surprising government officials. Currently, our children are securing an aggregate of 71 % in the core subjects (English, Maths and Odia), whereas the performance of government school students is less than 40 %,” summed up Ramakant Sahoo, Project Coordinator of the Friendship Education project, the pride reflecting in his voice.