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スラムではじめたNozomi HT Gakkoの活動記録


by handstogether

のぞみがっこうの時間割

デリーも冷え込みが厳しくなってきました。
コンクリートばり、まどにガラスもないがっこうはかなり寒いはずですが
こどもたちの熱気にあふれて寒さを不思議と感じません。

今日はのぞみがっこうの時間割(?)についてお話します。のぞみがっこうは
「オーダーメイド」補習校なので毎回毎回違いますが、だいだいこんな
感じで進みます。

17:15分ころ~ばらばらとこどもたちが集まりはじめる。
   友達と来る子、ひとりで来る子さまざま。
17:30分ころ~授業開始。好きな場所にそれぞれこどもたちは
   座って、ここで先生が出席表に記入して授業開始。(ちなみに、
   出席表は今まちださんとSanyam-jiで改定中。とっても素敵な
   デザインで出来上がりそうです。)
出席記入後~思い思いに勉強。高学年くらいの子たちは学校の宿題を
   やりながら分からないことを聞いたり、授業で分からなかったことを
   聞いたり。数学が得意な子は日本の高校生がとくような証明の問題を
   ひょいひょいといています。ちびっこたちは勉強のまねっこ。
   もっぱらアルファベットを書いたり、簡単な足し算、引き算をしています。
19:00ころ~お母さんが迎えにきて帰ったり、今日の分を終えて帰る子が出てきます。
19:30ころ 授業は終わり。だけど、だいたいこども達は40分くらいまでは粘っています。
   あと は、帰る前に宿題を出して欲しいとねだる子が沢山います。
   先生はノートに問題を沢山書いてあげると子供たちは嬉しそうにそれぞれの
   宿題を持って帰ります。

のぞみがっこうの電気を消して、先生たちも帰ります。

イメージとしては日本の「寺子屋」に近いかもしれません。月曜日から土曜日。
17:30~19:30の毎日2時間。今日ものぞみがっこうからはこどもたちの元気な
声が聞こえます。

のぞみがっこうの時間割_b0119809_171512.jpg

この窓の向こうをのぞきに来ませんか?
(samdra)
# by handstogether | 2007-12-12 01:13

好きこそものの上手なれ

のぞみがっこうは一見みるととっても非効率かもしれません。
せまい教室に40人以上のこどもたちがすし詰めです。
問題集、授業、テキストもありません。
学年もばらばら。こどもたちは先生どりに一苦労するときがあります。

けれど、ここは勉強を楽しいと思える場所だと、私は思います。

学校で分からなかったことが聞ける。得意な分野をさらに深められる。
すべてが「オーダーメイド」なので、こどもたちは自由に勉強できます。
もちろん普通の学校みたいに仲良しの子とおしゃべりも。
3歳、4歳のちびっこは10歳、11歳、12歳のきょうだいに
引っ付いてやってきます。
がっこうにくると同じ年の子供たちがいて
なんだか一緒に遊べる。知らないうちにアルファベットや数字を学ぶ。

「勉強」だけなら学校で出来ます。だけれど
のぞみがっこうはそれよりもっと基本的なこと
-勉強の楽しさを学べるところだと私は感じています。

最近のなんと言っても嬉しいことはテスト期間が
終わったにもかかわらず教室が子どもたちであふれかえっていること。

好きこそものの上手なれ-こどもたちの未来がここから拓けて
いくと考えるとわくわくします。
(by sea.island)
好きこそものの上手なれ_b0119809_3123140.jpg

# by handstogether | 2007-12-05 03:19

Hands Together Logo

Thisis the Logo designed by Dei san 7 years ago in Varanasi, there is a long story behind it. It brings people together. This is the symbol of thinking, unity and determination. It means to me that we work together for HANDS TOGETHER for the good cause.Hands Together Logo_b0119809_245534.jpg
# by handstogether | 2007-10-17 02:46
Today Ken san left for Japan. It was his Birthday today. He is the Senior Vice President of Hands Together and has done a lot for this Organization. Good luck to him for his new posting. Hope he comes back soon to India.
Sanyam
# by handstogether | 2007-10-17 02:40
はじめて"Hands Together"の設立を考え始めたのが2006年夏。
ヒンディー語の授業中に、デリーに住みながらスラムから目を背け続けることはできないとSanyamジーと私(Ken)が話していた中から、まずはスラムを訪問しよう、そこで自分たちに何ができるか考えよう、と一歩一歩活動をはじめたのでした。

私たちの団体"Hands Together"は、今年の1月にSociety Registration Actの下で登録され、遂に今年7月から"Nozomi HT Gakko"というスラムの補習校を開校。

そこに至る試行錯誤の日々を、Hands TogetherのPresidentをつとめるSanyamジー(ジーというのは敬称です)が切々と語ってくれました。

まだ活動の本当に初めの一歩なのですが、ここまで至る道のりだけでも大変でした。

History of Hands Together written by Sanyam-ji

Making of Bylaws of the association was tough, but it could not be avoided. We in a meeting decided to invite suggestions from our friends, so that we may decide our field of activities. I wrote a mail to everybody and asked for the same and I myself checked on internet and visited many websites and web pages in order to get ideas about the format of the bylaws. I received mails almost from everybody and every mail had some suggestions. We were very happy about it. I spoke to my brother in Varanasi and he provided me a copy of the memorandum of association, he is running in Varanasi.

Anyway Machida san and Ken san decided to call on a meeting to discuss the collected matter and giving it a final shape. We, including me, Machida san, Ken san, Dei san, Inoue san and Tada san met at a restaurant in Deer Park and discussed. We not only spoke about the subject but also gave our individual views. It was decided that I will provide all the material to Machida san and she will prepare the draft and send it back to me.

As decided I provided her all the required material and after a week she sent me the draft of 'Field of Activities'. I was amazed, it was done in a very professional manner, I just put it at its right place in the Memorandum of Association.

Registration of association was definitely a very hectic and tiring job. I had to go again and again to the lawyer and re-shape the material, finally it was filed and we got our 'HANDS TOGETHER' registered under the Society Registration Act of XXI of 1860. I must not forget to thank the Board Members of Hands Together, who helped and supported the cause whole heartedly. I got the certificate of Registration in the month of January 2007, just after its registration and after a little while also the certified copy of the Memorandum of Association. Now we were a duly registered Non-Government Organization working in Delhi.

In the month of February, 2007 a meeting was called on, the meeting was to discuss about running some educational or other programs in slums. We discussed about possibilities and decided to visit some slums in order to locate the area in which we could run our activities. Some time back me and Ken san had met the former Slum Commissioner of Delhi and he had given us some very valuable suggestions. Keeping those suggestions in mind Ken san met some people of Naya Prayas (one NGO), which is operating in Bhanwar Singh Camp, Vasant Vihar in South Delhi. He had actually found a place where we could run our activities as Naya Prayas looked very friendly and especially Shashirekha san, the Project Manager is very helpful.

We including Ken san, Machida san, Yukari san, Dei san, Inoue san and me visited Head Office of Naya Prayas, which is called Prayas and met Mr. Haldar, the Executive Director. We saw all the facilities being provided in Prayas and after having a 90 minutes facility watch, we sat together and conversation. It was decided that we can use the community centre at Bhanwar Singh Camp to run our activities for poor children. These children go to school, but neither they study there, nor they find any atmosphere at home to do so.

We met Shashirekha san several times and talked about various possibilities and about all those thing or facilities we could provide. In a meeting of Hands Together we came to a conclusion that first we must collect some data.

In the month of May we conducted a survey at Bhanwar Singh Camp. The objective of the survey was to collect information about education level of children and about the problems they face in studies at school or at home. More over we also collected information like the number of family members, father's/ mother's occupation, physical disability etc.

A team of Hands Together, comprising of 7 Japanese Nationals, 3 Canadians, 3 Americans and many Indians including me, conducted this survey and collected the data. The month of May in Delhi was exceptionally hot and three fans for over fifty people were looking helpless. The sun was coming straight to the room and we felt as if we were sitting in an oven, by the end of the survey, which took about three hours, we were completely wet and exhausted. Each and every child was asked individually and at the end of the survey a very authentic data was our achievement. Before finishing the survey biscuits packs were distributed among children and it was made assured that every child got one.

After a few days when we called on a meeting, the data was presented before the board members and foreign friends. Different aspects of the collected data were discussed. It was noticed that almost every child had failed in school examination once or more times and school are not providing what these children really require. It was very difficult to understand that some children could not write even their names and have been going to school for a few years. At home there is no atmosphere of studying and schools are not encouraging. The future of these children, depending on this schooling, is questionable.

We decided that we will provide 'After School Education' to these children, so that they cope with the main stream schooling. A lot of children of middle and higher class of India go to private coaching institutes after coming back home from their school. But poor families can not afford it. We thought, we could provide exactly the same facility, but some problems were there; the first and the biggest was 'the space', where we could run these classes, the community centre, where we conducted the survey, could be the possible answer to this question, in this regard we needed to speak to Mr. Haldar of Prayas; the second problem was 'teachers', it was never very difficult to find volunteers who wanted to teach, but in that case we could not maintain the rhythm of classes, as these teachers would not be very regular. One more thing, we always wanted to hire professional teachers with some experience, so that we provide result-oriented teaching. Any way, we had some time, it was the summer vacation of schools and students were not going to schools and we could not start anything before July. The meeting was over with the decision that the education is our priority and I had to speak to speak to authorities of Prayas in this regard.

My dialogue with Mr. Haldar proved to be fruitful, as per our expectation, he had no problem. Later I also wrote a letter to him about this. Shashirekha san has been very supportive, at the community centre the class room can be used, but most of the benches are broken and need to be repaired. I asked Shashirekha san, she arranged a carpenter, it took sometime, but all the benches were repaired. Hands Together paid for all the repairs.

We got one teacher 'Saurabh san', a university student, earlier we decided that we will hire university students, so that they may earn some money from this part time natured job. Today he is very popular among kids. We started classes on the 1 st of July, before that Shashirekha san and me had some meetings with children and their parents. We got a good number of students. Admission forms were filled, photos were taken and classes started. We wanted to hire one lady teacher, but we did not succeed. Ladies don't want to work in slum areas after sunset. We had to wait to get other teacher and then we gave a very small 'three line commercial' in a newspaper. As a result, I got more than 200 hundred calls in three days. This is the month of September, when I am writing about this, and still some people call me sometimes regarding this add.

I received bio-data of more than 60 people and our board members interviewed them and out of all these many people we chose one Mr. Anjan Chakraborty, a Bengali teacher who has been teaching at different institutions for last ten years and is very polite. He has knowledge of the subject and he looked very sincere. Now after he has been teaching at 'Nozomi HT Gakko', I can proudly say that our choice was really good and now as we call him 'Dada' (in Bengali it means elder brother) he is attracting a large number of students from slum and surroundings.

Now classes are running very properly, but we are facing many problems there. One of the biggest problems is the space for so many students. We are teaching students of different classes at the same room and it is sometimes turning into a mess. I want to improve this situation but we have very little resources and we have to manage within.

I want to write more and more and surely I would. Please write your comments and suggestions. Your words value to us.

Sanyam for Hands Together
# by handstogether | 2007-09-20 22:49 | Nozomi HT Gakko