Antral – ‘Bridging the Gap’

About Antral-

Antral is a voluntary organization registered under the Indian society Act 1860.

VISION:

The inception of Antral took place when few people, those who love to work with a vision to empower the disadvantaged children and self, came together. The word Antral means ‘the existing gap’ in our society. We at Antral, have a vision to bridge this gap by creating an open platform which offers alternative education to the not-so-privileged children. The idea is to give each child a space where one can explore, identify his/her potential and become an independent learner. Thus, we see good life skills based education, not only as the fundamental right of every child but, also as the most potent means of creating an equitable society.

Our Belief:

“As you simplify a child's life, the laws of the Universe will be simpler to you”.

The concept of Open Schooling:

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) formerly known as National Open School (NOS) was established in November,1989 as an autonomous organisation in pursuance of National Policy on Education 1986 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD), Government of India.

NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) was brought for the improvement in enrollment at primary and secondary level.

Dropout rate: 25% (I to V), 49% (I to VIII) and 62% (I to X)

Laborers migrate along with their families and it becomes difficult for their children to attend school.

The Model:1

Promotion from govt. and Funding agencies as alternative education

Background:

The Team at Antral strives to educate, enable and simplify the life of as many children who belong to migrating communities living in the construction sites, slum community, streets, rural areas and who are deprived of a formal or in-formal educational environment.

We at Antral, also seek to help children who are autistic, sexually abused and special in any way. We try to align our vision by uncovering their intrinsic innate curiosity, imparting science and silence together, spreading love, compassion, peace, grace, gratitude and light, and hence, initiating the process of transformation within them.

Antral has already reached out to children in 3 cities of India i.e. 2 (Darbhanga and Begusarai) in Bihar and one in Greater Noida, U.P. There are about 40 children in both districts (Darbhanga and Begusarai). From september 2012 we would be starting an subsidized learning center for the children of 10 th to 12th class in slum area of Delhi.

Overview of Antral’s work:

We started working with children in April, 2011. Later, realizing the need of a registered body, we applied and got it registered in August, 2011. Till now, we have been able to reach out to children of construction laborers, children of migrating communities, some victims of child labor and street children.

We believe in the vision of Rabindranath Tagoe and J.Krishnamurty as need for the current education system, so we follow alternative approach.

We have learned through our experience that education system and pedagogy can never be same or common for all places. We have realized that education system for every village and community may vary according to the

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Open Schooling (NIOS)

Role of NGO in concept development and project management

ANTRAL

environment of that village or community, and then only we can really make our children an independent learner.

Aims& Objectives:

Antral believes that every child has his/her own uniqueness and individuality. Thus, Antral aims to help them to realize who they are. We aim to preserve their individuality and let them grow into an independent learner.

We believe that the aim of education should be to develop rational autonomy, sensitivity to all democratic and egalitarian values, dignity of human life, respect for labor, and capability to work. Thereby, enabling the child to be a self-motivated and independent learner simultaneously.

We provide an independent learning mind frame to children. Antral doesn’t encourage any kind of grading system to assess children hence, we don’t take examination of the children at ASK. We try to periodically assess our children on some essential parameters, with a detailed report about the child. We strongly feel that every child has her own identity, so we aim to nurture and build up her identity in the way she wants. Here, we encourage ‘alternative education’, where our child gets freedom to make her capable of taking decision for herself. Despite the challenges in such a learning program, it’s showing the best expected outcome and thus, we plan to take it forward.

Our objective is also to work with individuals and organizations working in the field of elementary education. Working together with experienced individuals, academicians and organizations such as Digantar, Shikshantar and Manzil, gives us exposure to new methods and techniques which would be beneficial for our children as well as our organization.

Our aim is to provide education up to senior - secondary level together with some essential vocational training which would be meaningful especially to the not-so-privileged children of our society.

We emphasize to create a non-competitive environment for our children where every child is free to move in their own way.

Our objective is to conduct a research in all aspects of elementary education.

Help other individuals and organizations working in the same field.

Work for the advancement of the society in general.

We are building a structured course curriculum which has various levels. A child who has finished the first course of a particular level is considered to be eligible for the next level. We would enroll our eligible children into NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) where a child can give examination in 3 levels. Exams are conducted for class 8th, class 10th and class 12th.

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Our curriculum includes yoga and meditation classes on weekends to nourish body, mind and soul of our children. As we believe that spiritual growth is most important for every human being, it should begin from childhood. Yoga and meditation are the tools which help to develop spirituality in a human being.

We also believe that different therapeutic exercises and therapies such as catharsis and EET (Emotional Empowerment Technique) and EFT (Emotional freedom technique), help children to make them more expressive and increase emotional quotient.

We aim to promote the importance of organic farming, zero waste living and conscious living among society.

We try to follow an integrated approach to child development. Thus, we aim to organize awareness programs and workshops for parents and mothers on pre-natal caring. We focus to make the parents aware of the precautions that are needed to be taken for the birth of a healthy child.

As there are no quick-fix solutions in education so to provide quality education to all, we need to augment institutions in order to develop a shared vision of education among teachers and other functionaries.

We also seek to start a re-habilitation programme for the trafficked and sexually abused children so that they can regain their normal life and enter into the world of education.

Our Funding:

Till now our organization is running on the basis of individual funding which we collect funds from group of college students, individuals and other infrequent donors. We don’t have access to any government or corporate funding but we are trying to reach them in order to reach out to maximum number of children to whom we are targeting. On some occasions our children took certain creative initiatives to raise funds for themselves (basically through events).Ideas came out of dialogue between the children and the mentor.

Past Events and Activities:

BADHTE KADAM:

Badhte Kadam was an initiative taken by children at ‘Antral Shiksha Kendra’ at P3, Greater Noida, UP. Antral’s children understand the need and their right to get computer education, which other privileged children of their age group, get otherwise. But lack of funds is a hindrance in the way of fulfilling this need. With their determination and imagination, these kids came up with an idea of taking Diwali beyond celebration. They decided to explore their creativity in painting and decorating Diyas, earthenlamps, and other decorative items. They made every item alive with their creativity and art, and then they reached to the market place to display their creativity. We at Antral strongly believe that it’s

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the social and moral responsibility of all conscious individuals to help the cause. This kept our hopes high and the event was eventually a success.

EDUTHON:

Eduthon-2011, A 10 Km run, organized in Greater Noida. Our aim was to create awareness and raise funds for Antral with the help of the event. The event was organized by students of Indus World School of Business. The college has a rich entrepreneurial and academic pedigree. It was set up by the Career Launcher Group, one of the largest ‘edu-corporates’ in the country. The core aim of the event wass to create awareness about the Antral.We Invited people to volunteer and witness the event. This 10 KM run was for all those who would want to run for a cause and inspire others to join the cause. The event was a great success and we collected a fair amount of fund to fulfill needs of Antral’s children.

Online event invitation and details: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=280877835268002 or Google EDUTHON – 2011.

Greeting Card Initiative:

Here our children learned to make beautiful greeting cards on the occasion of Christmas and New Year. For this initiative we got help and support from Manzil NGO, situated in Delhi. This also became an excellent learning experience for all of us.

HIV Awareness programme by NAZ India (NGO):

HIV awareness programme was conducted by NAZ India for the parents and other community people on 24 th

December, 2011. Here volunteers from NAZ helped the community people to understand every aspect of HIV. At first, they outlined the difference between HIV and AIDS. Discussion was very interactive because the volunteers were experienced and they succeeded to get the full attention of the community people in understanding everything. Community people got to know a lot about HIV and the precautions that can be taken to prevent themselves.

Volunteer Program:

Under this programme, volunteers from the management college came to volunteer for ASK (Antral Shiksha Kendra) Greater Noida, from 12th jan, 2012 to 7th feb, 2012. Volunteers took regular classes of the children on different topics in which 3 days of week were spent in learning ‘English Language’, as per the curriculum provided by Mr. Ravi Gulati founder of Manzil (NGO). Apart from classes, volunteers also helped us in preparing profile of every child of Greater Noida chapter.

Rice Cultivation – A Meditative process:

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This monsoon form July end to August 1st week we worked on a project of relating rice cultivation with science. We felt somewhere the need to know.. to learn the process of rice cultivation, because we saw that everyone knows to eat but rare people knows how to grow a single grain of rice. Out instinct said that it would be the best way of celebrating monsoon.. the best way to experience the rainy season. 

Other Activities:

Workshop with Parents and community people: We conducted several awareness programmes and workshops on issues like importance of education, health and sanitation, safe drinking water, impacts of child early marriage, family planning and monthly budget planning. Here we learned about their problems from their perspective and together tried to find out some solution of those problem.

Future Activities:

Activities Expected Outputs Outcomes1. Life Skills Programme Children would acquire life skills

as per their interests and creativityChildren would become independent

2. Learning centre programme Children would learn reading, writing, speaking, etc

Children would be able to present themselves.

3. Herbal manure making In the villages of Buhar and Jharkhand together with farmers and children we would promote herbal methods of manure making.

Children would practically learn many things in science.

4. Organic farming This we can do in city like G.Noida as well as in villages together with community people and children

Children would learn different methods of organic farming and would explore it as process of art and science.

5. Zero waste Together children and volunteers we would pour our creativity in making best out of waste.

Children would be aware of living in harmony with nature.

6. Kitchen Garden We would conduct workshops with our children for the rural schools in understanding the importance of having our own kitchen garden.

Children would learn the importance of producing their own food and also they would be learning science practically.

7. Co-operaative games We would be offering workshops with our children for all types of people where we would make them learn the importance of co-operative games.

Children as well as other participants would learn to promote co-operative games rather than competitive games.

8. Child sexual abuse & reproductive health

We would be conducting 2 to 3 days workshop on CSA and reproductive for all types of

Everyone would understand why such evil like CSA exists in our society and how to overcome it.

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children, teachers, parents and youths

Registered head Office &Centre:

Chapki, Laxhimisagar,

Darbhanga,

Bihar, Pin – 846009

Contact no: 9973617438, 9709612312, and 8750661667

Documentation by:

Sumit Gunjan

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