Jai Wadia

Muskaan, with the help of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, is rehabilitating children in the urban slums of Bhopal through holistic, sustainable and collaborative initiatives

Chandni, 8, wakes up early, hurriedly picks rags at the neighbourhood garbage dump, rushes home and waits patiently for the tempo to pick her up and take her to the Muskaan learning centre. There she happily sings songs, listens to stories and draws pictures. Along with her friends, she learns how to count — using stones and wooden rods, instead of an abacus — and learns to read from cards and charts with pictures of vegetables and fruits. She winds up another day of fun learning at the centre with lessons in writing and arithmetic.

This has now become the stimulating daily routine for some 400 children like Chandni, living in six slums in the city of Bhopal. Like their 192 million counterparts in other Indian cities, these children do not have access to formal schools. They spend their childhood collecting waste paper, cardboard, plastic, scraps of iron or copper from the streets and selling them for a few rupees — valuable extra income for families living on the fringes of urban society.

Muskaan, meaning 'smile' in Hindi, is a non-governmental organisation which began in 1997 by providing basic education to 20 children from the Ganga Nagar slum of Bhopal, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, for two hours every evening. Today, Muskaan is bringing smiles to the faces of many more children through its educational programmes and activities.

"As a team we have always believed in the inherent capacities of people to take decisions appropriate for themselves; in the people's right to develop and express themselves by accessing opportunities equitably (irrespective of caste, class, sex) and to attain an optimal quality of life. Our role lies in providing an environment whereby people and particularly children have opportunities for enhancing themselves, and confidence to access these opportunities," says Shivani Taneja, founder member and programme coordinator of Muskaan.

At the Muskaan learning centre, children from 3 to 16 years, learn the fun way, with the help of toys and craft material. Proceeding from known to unknown, the Muskaan faculty draws upon these children's earlier experiences to teach the basics of language, maths and create awareness about the environment, spicing the whole exercise with such activities as designing their own newspaper or conducting science experiments. Monthly outings to a park or an open-air museum are an important part of the experiential learning curriculum.

Like their parents, some of whom hail from a nomadic or tribal background, these children have never been to school or dropped out soon after. This lack of education sharply increases their deprivation and vulnerability in an urban, alien setting. Muskaan's intervention provides not only access to education but also a comfort zone where the children can acquire the confidence to voice their concerns.

Take Lakshmi, who volubly articulates her complaints against a conventional school she earlier attended: "I did not like going to the Deep Shikha School because the bathroom never had water. The other children also did not speak to us. Madam would never teach. She would tell us to use the guide or mark answers in the textbooks. How could we understand from that?"

Or Lakhu, a 12-year-old who, like most children from poor families, has had to shoulder great responsibilities at a young age. Speaking about his elder brother who has run away from home, Lakhu confided to a Muskaan facilitator, "If I didn't have younger brothers and a sister, then I too would have done the same."

Muskaan is a safe haven for children like Chandni, Lakshmi and Lakhu, where there wilting spirits are given the emotional nourishment to flower and bloom. Formal schools, both government and private, frighten these children into non-performance, whereas Muskaan provides them with a non-threatening and open environment, more conducive to learning.

Muskaan's initial thrust was on mainstreaming these out-of-school children, which required motivating the already impoverished parents to pay at least part of the school fee and striving to bring the children up to the required academic levels. But the organisation soon realised that conventional schools could not cater to the needs of these children and evolved a two-pronged intervention strategy: one, an alternative, autonomous learning centre for these children, and two, a series of teacher sensitisation and training programmes in four existing government schools. Thus was born Jeevan Shiksha Pahel, a learning centre with one teacher for every 25 children and an emphasis on learning through personal experiences. The progress of each child is monitored regularly and worksheets are shared with their parents, increasing their involvement with the child's education.

The second initiative took the shape of workshops for teachers for facilitating child-centred learning, bal melas (fairs for the children) for encouraging creativity and fun, and programmes for sensitisation to the needs of deprived children.

Muskaan is now widening its activities and has a separate team engaged in addressing the ancillary issues of health, micro-finance, livelihoods, housing and land rights in the six slums. This diversion into areas other than education has become necessary for the success of Muskaan's educational activities: till the basic problems of life in the slums are tackled, children cannot learn.

The challenges that Muskaan has to face are many: Parents' motivation to educate their children is low, since there is no role model illustrating the benefits. Smaller children often accompany their elder sibling to class, which becomes a distraction. Girls are not encouraged to study beyond a certain age and are either married off or required to work at home. But Muskaan continues its efforts, helped by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust which has extended its support in tune with its commitment to reform elementary education.

Initially, the Trust gave a one-year grant of Rs 2 lakh (USD 43,000) in 2000 to Muskaan, to support children's education and women's livelihood in the slums. Based on a satisfactory review of the work in January 2002, another three-year grant of Rs 24 lakh (USD 52,000) was sanctioned, and in June 2005, was followed by another grant of Rs 65 lakh (USD 141,000) for a three-year period. This financial support is aimed at strengthening and expanding Muskaan's work, including the centralised learning centre, building the capabilities of community members, strengthening government schools through demonstration classes and running balwadis (nurseries) in four slums.

Heartened by this unstinting support and the success of its initiatives so far, Muskaan is eagerly looking forward to seeing a smile on the faces of many more Chandnis, Lakshmis and Lakhus as they grow up to be confident adults and productive members of society.

Uploaded on October 30, 2006