Anganwadi School
Local partner:
Resource Educational Society
The Resource Education Society (RES) is a non-profit organisation created in
1993. Its work is based on the strong conviction that education is key to a
society’s sustainable development. In the beginning, RES simply offered evening classes, but it gradually widened the scope of its operations.
Context:
CCI has observed during its work in India that despite their young age, little girls
often have the same responsibilities as their mothers. Taking care of the
housework, cooking, washing and looking after siblings takes up a lot of their time and energy. Some of them do go to school, but because they are so
exhausted, they lack the necessary concentration, and sometimes they even fall asleep during classes.
Consequently, CCI and RES opened an Anganwadi School in 2019, that is to say a preschool child care center aimed at educating young children aged three to five.
This way, big sisters can be released from family responsibilities and focus on their schooling in regular public school while younger siblings are taken care of by the teacher at the Anganwadi School.
Photo credit : Kiran Ambwani / CCI
From child laborer to teacher : the story of Korlamma Meda
The Anganwadi School is run by Korlamma Meda. She and her husband,
Ammoru, were among the first group of children benefitting from CCI’s project for the liberation and education of young people freed from indentured slavery. They got to know each other as children upon their arrival at the Rainbow Center in 2005. Subsequently, upon adulthood they married of their own free will, and now
have two children of their own.
Because they are educated, they both place great importance on education. Very early on, they made certain their children were schooled, and did not hesitate to testify to the advantages they themselves enjoy thanks to their own education.
They even made education their profession since Ammoru is a teacher in a
nursery school and Korlamma teaches CCI’s beneficiary children at the
Anganwadi School. She is happy to be able to earn a living with her new job.
Objectives :
• Educate young children from the village of Thammayyapalem.
• Promote access to education for girls.
• Provide personalised follow-ups for pregnant women or mothers with
toddlers.
• Develop children’s social skills.
• Educate families and communities about the importance of education.
Thammayyapalem families now have a safe learning space where their children
(from the ages of three to five years old) are welcomed each day, enjoy meals and snacks, and learn the basics of English and Telugu (the local language), mathematics and civics.
The fact that CCI opened such a learning center for very young children has had
the effect of reassuring parents. They can now devote themselves to their jobs with peace of mind because they know that their little ones are not roaming the streets without supervision, and that older siblings are in school since they have been released from their baby-sitting duties.