Introduction

This project mainly focused on the rag picker children between the age group of 3 to 14 years and is helping them in many ways in providing education. Besides providing them formal education, this project is also operating several recreational activities to dissuade them from drug abuse. In order to make the project much efficient, Asha Deep Foundation has targeted the root cause and now operating a crèche center where the children from rag picker community are helped right from their early childhood. Based on the results of the primary survey in two of the communities, Gali pre-school (Street-Pre School) has also been started which is making it possible to encourage parents to send their children to these nearby places for education, which they earlier used to refuse. Currently, Asha Deep Foundation is operating around 20 such pre-schools. It has also started remedial classes for children who were unable to complete their education on time. This program makes it sure that the apparent age difference should not make them bother about their studies.

Aim

To provide early quality education to the children of Ragpicker community between the age of 3 to 14 years.

Objectives

• To ensure their right to education and enhancing the quality of living of these children through crèches, learning centres, Gali Schools, After School Support and Youth Recreation Centre
• To create awareness among the Ragpicker community about their basic rights
• To create awareness regarding various issues of health and hygiene amongst the family members and also updated them with the recent prevalent diseases in that area.
• To identify and assess psychological problems in children and to help them to cope up with the same through counseling and networking.
• To prevent the youth from getting engaged in various drug abuse problem and indulging in other anti-social activities.
• To encourage the enrolment of the girl child in the various operating educational programs and monitoring their performance through various follow-up mechanisms.
• To form adolescent girl’s groups in the communities and providing instructors for spreading right knowledge about the adolescent life cycle of girls.
• To enhance the capacity of the adolescent girl group by providing them training on early childhood care and education.
• To strengthen the linkages with other school and sensitizing them about the gender disparity and importance of primary education for the community children.

Asha Creche

After the primary survey Asha Deep Foundation realized that the efficiency of the project can be improved by indulging the children in education related activities from very early phase of their life and inculcating the good habits about cleanliness, hygiene and manners. It also helped in reducing the financial burden on the family.

There are 60 Children of the ages 3-5 enrolled in Asha Crèche. The Children are given care, food and pre-school education when their parents are away for their rag picking work. Parents drop the children at 9.00 a.m. in the morning and pick them up between 1.00p.m.to 1.30p.m. Pre-school education is also conducted using play way method on the following subjects: Hindi (alphabets, poems); English (alphabets, Poems); Math counting; Drawing; Good habits and Storytelling.

Breakfast and lunch are provided free of cost to the children. Nutritious food hygienically prepared is provided to the children. Since the children are of very young age the staff also helps the children to learn good eating habits.

Gali Pre School

Primary objective of Asha Deep Foundation is to render education to the underprivileged children through PEACE (Primary Education Augmentation through Corridor Edification) Program. Asha Deep Foundation is running early childhood education program named Gali-pre school, which is operated in the slums and resettlement colonies of North East Delhi. The program targets children between the age group of 3-5 Years. Presently 20 Gali Pre School are operating in the slums of Seemapuri. The Instructors belonging to the same communities and trained by ADF, have offered their homes as the venues for the classes. Community resources and participation are used in the development process

Remedial Class

Asha Deep Foundation (ADF) believes in the overall development of the underprivileged communities and adopts a multi-prong approach in all its projects .Education is one of the major development areas where foundation focusses on and children are the main beneficiaries. Children aged between 3-5 years are being prepared in Crèche and Gali Pre-Schools and enrolled in formal schools. Children who are dropped out from schools or who have never attended schools are taught in non-formals education centers and ultimately enrolled in formal schools. The fact of the matter is that after enrollment in formal schools, many children drop out from schools due to various reasons such as inability to cope with studies, lack of support from parents, lack of quality education in government schools and their inability to afford private tuitions. So, remedial education for school going children in the rag picking community is extremely important to fulfill the aim of educating children in the community.