Jan Seva Mandal inaugurated 2022 with the reopening of the boys’ boarding on Sunday, 2 January. 34 boarders (out of a total of 44) came in to stay and complete the last few months of the academic year.
On Monday our village teachers arrived for a two-and-a-half day refresher course. Teachers from 20 villages from the learning centres in the Satpuda foothills were present, as were two of our supervisors and one computer technician. We left the teachers from the six hill-based classes for another day (11 January), since travel to our training centre in Nandurbar is even more laborious for them than for the rest.
The programme began with a video screening – of the Guidelines for Rural Teachers. This specially designed, recently produced training module is a more concise and accessible training course for teachers. The screening was followed by sessions focusing on a variety of themes to enhance the teachers’ skills and competence: poster making and using art for teaching; games to teach mathematics; stories, skits and songs in Bhili; using our text, Moving Ahead with English; singing along with our music videos. An interesting exchange of ideas on what each teacher was achieving with the children highlighted the purpose and function of our rural learning centres. The responses ranged from ‘Children find it helpful when teachers explain things in their mother tongue’ to ‘Children are beginning to reach English from our text’; from ‘Parents ask why the classes are closed, when we are busy with other work’ and ‘Children who have learnt something have a small group of other children coming to them after school, to learn from them’. The meet concluded with each teacher receiving a gift and a new JSM calendar for the year.
A week later, our education team worked with supervisors and teachers of Shirpur Vishwa Mandal Sevashram, Dhule, to devlope their educational programme with the Pawara Adivasi community.
In the fields, our resource team for agricultural innovation continued their meetings with farmers interested in improving their output through the use of sustainable technologies.
