are we MAD?

A new melody…

The noon is bright. The night, dark. Being a bridge between the two, evening was the appropriate time to leave the comfort of office and visit the Anuraga NFE center.

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As per the Census of India 2001, there were 1,402,971 people living in slums in Karnataka, 207,912 of whom were children in the age group of 0 to 6. Bangalore alone accounted for 61,978 such children. Many of them are involved in some form of labour, and do not get to attend school.

Rashtrotthana Parishat is a service organization, which was started in 1965. Anuraga, an initiative by Rashtrotthana Parishat, was started in 1999 to provide education to children, who either do not attend school or drop out of it. So far, it has set up about two hundred Non Formal Education (NFE) centers covering 148 slums and 4000 children (in the age group 9 to 14).

An NFE center is normally run, for two hours, after six in the evening from Monday to Saturday. This way even working children can attend it. The learning is activity oriented - involving singing, dancing and playing as a part of the curriculum – with the main focus on Kannada, Arithmetic, Environmental Science and Value Education.

The teaching and learning material is provided free of cost by Rashtrotthana Parishat. The teacher, also known as “akka”, is continuously trained to carry out the task well.

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It was a little ironical that it took us only about ten minutes to reach the NFE center. Jayalakshmi, a middle-aged lady, greeted us there. We started following her through the narrow lanes of the slum. She had been working as a full-time supervisor of Bagalur region in Bangalore for Anuraga for five years.

When we reached the first center, the games session was going on. “Hi uncle… Hi uncle”, many voices said, almost together. The children stopped playing, probably surprised at being visited. Not wanting to disturb their play for any long, we continued on our way to another center after all of them had introduced themselves.

After walking for a while, and stopping over at another center, we reached a small terrace where Karthika was teaching children. She had completed her PUC and was studying in college. Her association with Anuraga was over a year old. The crutches next to her bore testimony to her spirit, and the spirit of the people we had been meeting all evening.

The light was very dim. A strong smell of dinner, which was under preparation, was rising to the terrace. Loud music was playing near by, to celebrate a birthday. The children seemed hardly bothered. They were just happy to be there. Some of them were shy to talk to us, some eager to sing for us, and some to tell us a story. After spending some time there, we moved on…

While walking back to our starting point, we crossed another centre. About 15 children were studying in a small room. “Banni”, a welcoming voice said. Unfortunately, the night was nearing. We had to leave. “Bye… Bye… Bye…”, playful voices repeated.

It was amazing to see so much enthusiasm for life and learning in that small place, where people had so much more to worry about. To me, this was something I would normally read about in a Dominique Lapierre book.

Evening was the bridge. At the end of the evening, I did not know which the night was, and which the noon.

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PS: I nearly forgot to mention the best part about this school – no homework and no punishment. Also, if you try to be absent, you might find the teacher at your doorstep…