Working life in Himachal Pradesh

We spent a day touring various projects that IDEX supports in the Sungal area, so that we could make an informed choice about where we would all like to volunteer our time. There are several government run District Community Centres, where children aged 2 to 6 attend every morning to be cared for & fed. These DCCs are also responsible for community visits when parents are encouraged to bring their children along to the centres & pregnant & lactating mothers are monitored & given advice. There were opportunities to teach English to a variety of age groups, to assist (well, turned out to be more like observing) at a health care clinic & to teach computing classes.

In the mornings we chose to work at a primary school (at Matt, pronounced mutt!) where we ran holiday classes, along with our co-volunteers Karen & Sandra, for 6 to 13 year olds. The number for children attending ranged from 11 to 26. We ran a joint session for all ages at the start & finish of the morning, teaching useful phrases e.g. Good Morning. How are you? I'm pine thank you. (Many Indian children can't seem to pronounce "f" or "sh" - on holding up a picture of a fish, we got a chorus of "PISS" shouted out by the children!!)

We also sickened ourselves, but we hope not the children, with repeated renditions of "This is the way we wash our faces", "The Hokey Cokey", "Head, shoulders, knees & toes", "Old MacDonald had a farm", "1 finger 1 thumb keep moving", "5 little ducks went swimming 1 day", "10 green bottles"..................... & many more old favourites dredged from our memories. We took the older children for lessons in Maths & English & our accompanying guide & yoga teacher, Diapak, led a yoga session & playtime games. Howard did go out & play football in the playground one day leading to a spectacular fall & a great goal - but once was enough.

We found that the children attend school somewhat sporadically. This can be true for the teachers too, leading to the need for volunteers like us. The school rooms left a lot to be desired too - tiny dark concrete cells, with dirty mats to sit on & little in the way of books or equipment. We were lucky to have a good wide balcony where we preferred to conduct classes out in the open air & we were also lucky to have a play area available (if a rather messy one after the local fair had been pitched there).

Learning in schools is obviously usually a matter of rote learning with little opportunity for thinking outside of the box or having fun while they learn. We were surprised at how fazed the children were at being asked to add more than 2 numbers together at a time or being asked to cut up a circle into fractions & then piece it back together. They found these things difficult to do ! They don't even get the chance to draw or do colouring. However, the standard of reading was good, they were incredibly well behaved & they were all keen to learn. The literacy rate is 74% in Himachal Pradesh as a whole & they have small families so the future looks hopeful.

We personally felt that 3 weeks was hardly enough to make a lasting difference to the way the children of the area are cared for & educated but who knows what spark we might have struck? We occasionally noticed local teachers lurking nearby, watching what we were doing & if nothing else, we kept quite a few children usefully & happily occupied for several hours a day. It was surprisingly tiring for us but definitely worthwhile - & mostly fun.

For an encore, in the afternoons Howard did more of the same, supposedly for women & adolescent girls, but mostly for children aged 8 to 12, while Fiona took a class of teenage girls for computer lessons.

And all of this without a stick - yes, teachers use sticks to keep order in Indian classrooms!