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Page 6 of 8
Before we come to our long term plans, let’s get a perspective
on the Tsunami destruction in Tamilnadu. About 10,000 people have died
in Tamilnadu because of the Tsunami one month ago. Every day in
Tamilnadu alone more than 3,000 people die of other causes – 90,000
people in a month. One may feel that the Tsunami deaths were avoidable.
But every year more than 50,000 children in Tamilnadu die of diarrhea
(underlying cause malnutrition). Is this also not avoidable? The
Tsunami deaths were very visible. The diarrhea deaths are not.
All the short term relief work we do will be likewise very visible. But
ultimately it is our long term invisible work that will bring about an
overall improvement in the area. While we work on the short term
programmes, this long term improvement should also be our goal.
Coming back to our earlier question, what will not happen in these areas if we go off to sleep for a year?
Schools will be up and running – no doubt. But across Tamilnadu,
just walk into a typical government school and ask fifth standard
children to read a simple story that you hand out. You will find half
the kids cannot read it. Half the kids in fifth standard in Tamilnadu
cannot read or write – after 5 years of schooling. More than half the
children in every village are malnourished. Almost none of the children
in middle school will think of science as having anything to do with
life or the world around.
Just because new buildings come up in the Tsunami affected
areas does not mean the above situation will change there. School
infrastructure will come in these areas. Quality of education will not.
Health infrastructure will come in these areas. Quality of life will
not. That’s where we must focus our efforts.
It is with this background that we are working on the following
long-term rehabilitation plans with specific focus on women and
children.
Our Long Term Plans (many parts of this will start immediately but will continue for several years):
- Integrated Cluster Programme: In 5 clusters of 5 Tsunami
hit villages each, we will do an intensive child health and women’s
health programme, a primary and middle school education improvement
programme and support for the vulnerable in these areas. The 5 clusters
will be spread out in the affected area. The villages around the
Tsunami hit villages are also very poor – often poorer than the Tsunami
hit villages themselves. Starting with the Tsunami hit villages, over
time we will also work in 15 other villages around – totally reaching
out to 20 villages each. Together therefore the Integrated Cluster
Programme will reach out to 100 villages. The integrated cluster
programme has 6 main programme components:
- Eureka Model Primary School: One school at the cluster center
entirely based on activity based learning methods and demonstrating the
effectiveness of such methods. The school not only demonstrates what a
good “joy of learning” school should be, it also serves as a model and
a resource center for 20 other schools in the area. The school will
also actively work with and train the government school teachers in
activity based learning methods.
- Eureka Children’s Multipurpose Learning Center: Each of the
villages will have a center that has many functions. It is a village
library. It is a toy center for children. It will function as a day
care center (crèche) during the day with pre-primary education. In the
evenings the center will have four roles: a creativity center for
children, a support center (literacy, numeracy, tuition) for children
who need additional tutorial help, a science club for primary and
middle school children – with focus on learning science through low
cost experiments and projects and a sport club for children
(particularly girls). Apart from the above, the center will also have a
computer education component to provide basic computer skills to
children. The center will also periodically organize community
educational activities – video shows, slide shows, special classes on
health, adult education, puppetry, magic shows etc. The center is
therefore also envisioned as a community learning center.
- Children and Women’s Health: In each village, a trained
health activist will weigh children and provide house to house basic
child health and women’s health services. This activist will be trained
by our team of health experts who will provide her with both preventive
health and curative health training. She will also be given a medical
kit for emergency medical care. This health activist will work with the
government primary health nurse and the primary health centers through
a system of referrals and will try to improve the effectiveness of the
government health services.
- Counseling and Support Networks: The Tsunami has left several
individuals extremely vulnerable. There are 4 specific categories of
people who are very vulnerable:
- Women who have lost their husbands
- Children who have lost parents
- Disabled People
- Older People who have lost younger earning members
To help these vulnerable sections, one has to organize local
community volunteers who will act as a watchdog. They will visit the
families regularly and ensure they are safe. They will also organize
support networks and counseling sessions for those who need it.
- Women’s Self Help Groups: We have been working on
micro-credit programmes for a long time and we will starting women’s
self help groups in these villages. The groups will save money and give
out loans from their savings. To supplement this loan, we will in
addition also provide them with “outside” micro-credit loans which they
will repay back and which will be reused for another group. This
revolving loan amount can provide these SHGs with additional loans.
This would be particularly needed for enterprises and medical
emergencies.
- Vocational Training Programme: To help people work on
alternate employment opportunities, along with the school we will also
have a vocational training programmes with specific courses for
training on alternative skills.
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