Reflection
Working with the government for educational change Rizwan Ahmed
Gubbachi entered the space of education for the marginalized out of school child in 2015. We saw that the problem was dire and time sensitive, as our surveys of the migrant labour settlements in the chosen area (Bengaluru peri-urban) revealed that every migrant labour settlement there had
significant numbers of children. These were from families that had come from both inside and outside the state. The children were out of school and unable to access any school. We decided to design an education intervention for the Out of School Child (OOSC). This was envisaged to allow children from migrant families to go to school in the city, and learn like any other child. We identified sibling care as one of the barriers for an older child to attend school. Therefore, we set up a bridge program with an Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) component. The curriculum sought to bring children up to speed in literacy and numeracy. The goal was also to help them integrate into a mainstream classroom of a government school by the end of a roughly one-year program.
Gubachi
G
ubbachi’s stated vision is a world where every child develops their potential to lead a dignified life. In this is encompassed the dignity of every individual in the child’s life as well - their family and their communities. We understand dignity as the ability of an individual to be an equal part of society, and, therefore, to have a voice—a voice that can articulate needs and aspirations without fear. The dignity of a child is the fulcrum on which all decisions pertaining to our work in education rests.
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