We Care Report DISHA Delhi

Submitted By: ARNAV GERA (A020) JASKARAN SINGH (D051) NAMAN KHANNA (HR027) SUBHASH KAPOOR (A034)

We Care Internship 2015 Disha NGO (Society for Rural and Urban Community Development) New Delhi

We Care Internship Report 2015

Page | 1

PREFACE

DISHA is a NGO working for socio-economic development of urban and rural

communities. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhis ideology of serving the downtrodden,

poorest of the poor and marginalized sections, DISHA works with children, adolescents,

women and their families in the area of education, health, gender equity, skill

development, Self-Help Groups, micro finance, water management, sanitation, livelihood,

peaceful conflict resolution for restoring justice, dignity and human rights. It has field

schools in various areas that serve the underprivileged children of society by giving them

elementary level education and helping them with school admissions. As part of We Care,

our project was to teach the students and do their assessment as per the ASER standards. The

project also taking involved continuing their activities in primary school that aimed at

improving the reading proficiency of students. Additionally we were also responsible to

digitize all the records of the assessment details that shall help them to track and analyse their

performance.

Place: New Delhi

Arnav Gera

Jaskaran Singh

Naman Khanna

Subhash Kapoor


Page | 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to thank the General Secretary of DISHA, Mr. Ravi Chopra and the CEO,

Ms. Shobhana Radhakrishnan providing us the opportunity to make this little difference to the

society. We would also like to thank the field staff that included Mr. Ramesh Kumar, Ms.

Sunita Sharma, Ms. Meena Kaushik and Ms. Sunita Kakkar, for their valuable guidance and

providing us the facilities to gain an incredible experience, the entire team for their time and

support which made our internship tenure insightful. We would also like to thank our faculty

mentor, Mr. Chandan Dasgupta, for being there as a pillar of support in case of any need.

Lastly, we would like to thank the SRF team, Ms. Anjalika Gujar and Dr. Meena Galliara for

being the guiding force behind this program that has provided us with invaluable insights and

life changing experience.

Arnav Gera

Jaskaran Singh

Naman Khanna

Subhash Kapoor


Page | 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our project aim was to assess the level of understanding of students in the subjects of hindi

reading and arithmetic ability at different municipal primary schools in the area of New Delhi.

As part of this assignment, we had to make use of ASER tool that was provided which had a

properly designed flowchart kind of assessment module that needed to be followed while

assessing each and every child in the allotted classes at the school. After the assessment had

been carried out, the students who lacked proper knowledge, for them teaching sessions were

held so that they could learn and understand the concepts. The students who could not read

hindi, for them a hindi reading camp was organized whereby proper reading and pronunciation

of letters and words of hindi was taught through innovative techniques. At the field school, we

took up the responsibility of teaching elementary level English, Mathematics and computer

lessons. The data collected in the assessment exercise over the past two years was also digitized

that helped the organization to track the students performance and analyse their track record

of the past two years.


Page | 4

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION..5

ABOUT DISHA..5

KEY PROJECTS AT DISHA ..6

OUR ROLE...7

ASER ASSESSMENT...8

ASSESSMENT TOOLS..10

HINDI READING CAMP.12

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS...13

LEARNINGS FROM THE INTERNSHIP14


Page | 5

INTRODUCTION

About DISHA

Disha was founded in 1992 and since then their initiatives have helped people on the path of

self-reliance and empowerment.

DISHA is an NGO working for socio-economic development of urban and rural communities.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhis ideology of serving the downtrodden, poorest of the poor and

marginalized sections, DISHA works with children, adolescents, women and their families in

the areas of:

Education

Health

Gender Equity

Skill Development

Self-Help Groups

Micro Finance

Water Management

Sanitation

Livelihood

Peaceful Conflict Resolution For Restoring Justice

Dignity And Human Rights

DISHA field school


Page | 6

These development programs are based on the felt needs of people with an effort to mobilize

participation for their individual and community development.

In the last seven years, the foundation has touched the lives of more than 20,000 boys and girls

from the slums and streets of Delhi and students studying in the municipal corporation schools.

Most of them are working and face sexual abuse, economic deprivation, and harassment and

are addicted to drugs. We also work with the families of the little ones to enable their children

to live their dreams.

In Bihar, they work for the empowerment of rural women who are at the bottom of the pyramid.

Since the past fifteen years they have helped women by establishing 825 Self Help Groups and

cluster groups to start micro- financing activities, skill development for sustainable livelihood

and micro enterprise development. Their children are provided education and adolescent girls

are given accurate and correct information on issues of adolescent reproductive health. DISHA

has also helped the marginalized communities to adopt rainwater harvesting for water

management and sanitation.

Key Projects at DISHA

Education: DISHA has been holding alternative educational classes for

approximately 1800 school going, school dropouts and non-school going children

every year. The focus is on enabling children to gain knowledge and skills through

participatory actions suitable to their needs. DISHA has aimed to use innovative

pedagogy like puppetry, creative theatre mime, photography, storytelling and

singing and using need based teaching learning material in education for enhancing

the artistic bent of the childs mind and help in increasing the technical ability.

Healthcare: DISHA is the Mother NGO for New Delhi district under RCH program

of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India since 2004 and

also provided direct services of family planning and reproductive and child health

to underserved and un-served population. DISHA undertook IEC activities for

increasing awareness and eerily health seeking behavior regarding Maternal and

child health.

Womens Empowerment: DISHA has undertaken activities for empowerment of

8850 poor women by organizing them into 825 Self-Help Groups, building their

social and economic assets and enhancing their status in their communities, training

them in micro-credit/finance, legal literacy, reproductive health, functional literacy

and raising their awareness of their rights. Through this forum women are involved

in implementation of preventive health care, education, legal aid, water

conservation and sanitation programs and are being capacitated to work towards

grass roots democracy for housing and land rights.


Page | 7

Our Role

In Delhi, our work was with children and youth, to encourage creativity through innovative

pedagogy in the area of education and skill development. We interacted with boys and girls

from the slums and streets of Delhi and students studying in the municipal corporation schools.

It gave us a lot of exposure into the education sector and also into the lives of underprivileged

children and hardships they face for gaining education. The staff and the children were

absolutely amazing and very helpful and cooperating.

During the course of our internship we were made to work on two projects, viz.-

1. ASER assessment of students

a. Do the assessment of students at school and NGO

b. Use the previous year data available

c. Analyze and draft a report of the findings

2. Participate in ongoing Hindi Teaching Camp at MCD schools

Each of these, with our contribution, have been explained in detail in this report.

Also, during the course of our internship, we conducted various activities such as:

Field visit to see the areas from where most of the students of NGO come from, and

have a first interaction with them and their parents

Drawing day at school where students were encouraged to draw anything that feel like

drawing and all students were made to come in front of the class and narrate 3 lines

about what they have drawn and why. This was to ensure that everybody is given an

opportunity to speak, express themselves, and applauded for the same so that they gain

some confidence

Taught English and Maths at NGO students and helped them clarify the basics and

strengthened their foundation in both the subjects

Attended the Discover Japan Conference, which taught us the power of Song. We also

implemented the learning from their in our days post the conference

Made students watch a movies at both NGO and at the school and made them identify

the key learning from the movies

Conducted various extra-curricular activities at the NGO and students were made to do

group activities and were taught importance of teams and how to work in teams

Conducted a quiz in school on varied topics across different subjects being taught to

them at school

Made students well versed with the concept of solar system through engaging,

educational videos

Celebrated painting day at NGO

Gave them guidance over planning their careers in life and the subjects they need to

take at school level.


Page | 8

ASER ASSESSMENT

The word aser means impact in Hindustani. If development programs are to lead to desired

outcomes, their impact on the ground needs to be regularly assessed.

ASER 2014 marked the tenth year of the Annual Status of Education Report. Each year since

2005, ASER has reached almost all rural districts in the country with three basic questions: Are

children enrolled in school? Can they read? Can they do basic arithmetic?

ASER is the only source that makes current data on schooling and learning available for all

states in India. Using a household survey methodology, ASER collects data for a representative

sample of children from every state and almost every rural district in India. On average ASER

reaches over 560 districts each year, surveying an average of 650,000 children in more than

16,000 villages in the country. This is about twice the size of the rural sample of the NSS

surveys, which provide estimates for poverty, employment, and other socioeconomic indicators

in India.

ASER seeks to use simple yet rigorous methods to generate evidence on scale on the outcomes

of social sector programs. It also aims to strengthen the link between evidence and action by

building the capacity of individuals and institutions to design, conduct, and understand

assessments that focus on key outcome indicators.

For Disha, the assessment was conducted at:

MCD schools at Inderpuri, Naraina, and Shadipur

Mayapuri Centre

Rewari Line Centre

Target Student Group:

Students of class I, II, III, IV and V from Inderpuri, Naraina Village, Shadipur and JJ Camp

schools were assessed on the hindi reading tool and arithmetic ability tool.

Hindi Reading Tool:

All the students were assessed on a simple reading tool that includes reading varna, shabd,

anuchhed, kahani. It follows a flowchart approach and tests the students capability level by

level.

Reading of varna

Reading of shabd

Reading of anuchhed

Reading of kahani


Page | 9

Testing using the tool:

Start with reading of anuchhed:

If the student is able to read anuchhed, he/she is asked to read kahani.

If the student is not able to read anuchhed, he/she is asked to read shabd and if

unsuccessful, then asked to read varna.

Then accordingly the student is marked.

Arithmetic Ability Tool:

The students from all the four schools were assessed using a tool that followed a flowchart

pattern whereby students were tested on their ability to:

Recognize digits 0-9

Recognize numbers 10-100

Perform subtraction of 2-digit numbers

Perform division with 3-digit dividend and 1-digit divisor

Testing using the tool:

Start with performing subtraction:

If the student is able to perform it, move to division.

If the student is not able to perform subtraction, then he/she is asked to recognize two

digit numbers, and if unsuccessful, then asked to recognize single digit numbers.

Then accordingly the student is marked.

The assessment data was then digitized for future references and also the data from previous

years was recorded in the electronic format that helped to analyse the efficacy of the assessment

at different schools, compared with data from past years, the improvements taken cognizance

of and the areas that were lagging behind were also taken note of so that they could be

improved.


Page | 10

The tool for hindi reading and arithmetic ability assessment have been added for ready

reference.


Page | 11


Page | 12

HINDI READING CAMP

A Hindi Reading camp was organized as an initiative by DISHA NGO to improve the reading

capability of 3rd and 4th class students and assist them at reading hindi correctly and efficiently.

This year innovative techniques were used to help students learn better, for example students

were taught by way of Poems and role plays and quiz, this type of methodology was used

because by this way the students would be able to learn better and focus on the subject. The

camp was undertaken at 4 different schools and each camp coordinator of Disha had used

different ways to teaching. An important objective of conducting this type of camp was to

analyze how different techniques and way of teaching can help students and the successful

methods would then be applied to the rest of the schools.

The whole exercise was conducted for a duration of 10 days at four different schools for

students of classes 3rd and 4th. The text was taken up from their course-book.

The topics and words that were mentioned in the story as well as in the poem were

explained and discussed with the students, to improve their understanding of the new

words.

To make them aware of the correct pronunciation, the text was read aloud.

To help them correctly pronounce the words, students were asked to keep their finger

on the word being read, so that they could start recognizing the word.

The difficult words that were mentioned in the text were written on the blackboard and

the students were asked to recognize and locate the word in their textbook.

Individually the students were asked to read the text and others followed the student

who was asked to read and accordingly any corrections were made, if required.

An activity of Shabd Antakshari was carried out.

Counting from 1-20 was written in words in hindi.

Some of the songs were taken up and written on the blackboard, which the students

were taught to pronounce and write correctly.

Students were asked to write the text in their notebook, so as to improve their writing

skills.


Page | 13

Overall more than 170 students were part of this camp at different schools and they were

then assessed. After the assessment when the results were compiled, a considerable

improvement was seen in the hindi reading proficiency. The graph gives an analysis of the

complete activity.

Comparative Analysis of Hindi Reading Camp schools under Disha Foundation

As per our assessment of the Hindi Camps undertaken at various schools under Disha

foundation we have seen that students of the MCPS Shadipur School have performed better

throughout as the percentage of students who could read fluently was the highest. It was

suggested that the methodologies adopted by the camp coordinators at MCPS Shadipur

School should be adopted by the other schools as this would lead to a better result across

all other schools.

The point of concern is the result of JJ camp and Inderpuri-I as we see that there are still a

few percentage of students who cannot read , so special focus would be given to these

students in order to help them learn and make them able to read fluently.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Number of children who

could read varna

Number ofchildren who

could readwords


could readsentence


could readfluently


could not read

MCPS, Shadipur-I JJ Camp, Narayana-I

Inderpuri-I MCP School, Naraina Village


Page | 14

LEARNINGS FROM THE INTERNSHIP

Internship at DISHA provided us an opportunity to learn explore beyond the academics and

books. As citizens we are aware of the problems in the country but most of us are not sensitized

towards them and do not understand the gravity of the problem. But We Care, the social

internship programme at NMIMS, provided us a platform where we could get some insights

into the problems faced by certain sections of the society, the root cause of the problems and

what can we do to improve the situation.

The diligent effort put in by all of us at teaching primary students in turn gave us a new learning

as to how we as individuals can contribute towards brighter future of our country. It also gave

us a peek into the operations involved in successfully running an NGO of which we had no

idea whatsoever. We now value the part played by voluntary service towards improving the

society. Through this we realized that how with little support the unprivileged children and

youth can be trained to become independent and earn a livelihood. The key is to focus on

sustainable growth and to ensure all members of the society progress.

The complete activity of teaching students and assessing their level of learning gave us the

opportunity to understand the education system and how some improvements in the form of

pedagogy and discipline can improve the learning standards of the students. It was quite

heartening to see how children despite facing such hardships are interested in studying which

is awe-inspiring in itself. This was a new experience for us and learnings were immense. The

digitization of the collected assessment data of this as well as the past years has helped the

organization to keep an electronic record of each and every student. This has helped in

generating comparative analysis reports comparing the performance of students across schools,

previous years and even across classes giving a clearer picture of the results obtained at macro

level. Additionally, it can help chart out any corrective actions that might need to be taken.

Working at DISHA was overall a very rich experience and it gave us an opportunity to

understand issues of society, something we may have never got otherwise. These learnings will

help us grow into more responsible managers in the future.

We Care Report DISHA Delhi

Documents

Transcript of We Care Report DISHA Delhi