Project Students Education and Entrepreneurship Development (SEED): A move towards making Indian youth better

Project Students Education and Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) embarked upon year 1997 seeks to support student beneficiaries from malnutrition and poverty hit tribal areas of Melghat in Amravati district and Dahanu/Jawhar block of Thane (former Palghar) district of Maharashtra at the BJS established Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC) in Pune. For long, tribal regions in India have been the foreground for socio economic backwardness. Despite the several measures to bring about a change in the lives of tribal population, the problems have continued to persist. 

BJS realized that a long term, consistent, and systematic approach is what is required to resolve the unflinching crisis. This program offers to bring about a change in the tribal regions through educating their children. The overall goal of the project is to educate and capacitate the children of tribal regions to transform them to become the 'change agents' of their own community. It will be a long time taking process, but the beginning of this change shall start with mainstream school education of the children of these regions.

The project is thus conceived with dual aim of providing children with appropriate opportunity and facilitating them to pursue education (from standard V onwards) and secondly, empowering them as self-sustaining citizens capable of contributing to holistic development of their own community.

From the time of commencement of this project every year a group of students are selected for standard V. After transferring them to BJS WERC they are enrolled for free of cost education at BJS Wagholi. The program undertakes a set of planned and structured interventions that comprised provision of quality education and co-curricular development, enabling and hygienic boarding and lodging facilities, nutritious meals, medical assistance and insurance and healthy psychosocial environment. The BJS WERC is well equipped with infrastructure facilities, training staff and administrative systems to track and monitor the performance of each unit of the centre. 

Even though local schools are present in tribal regions, BJS decided to adopt a different approach to educate these children by shifting them to BJS WERC to provide the exposure advanced educational and social tools to strengthen their inherit abilities, build their confidence to make them realize that they are competent as other children. BJS WERC focuses in enrolling children from standard V onwards because experience shows children are better prepared to stay independently away from family after attaining a certain age. They also begin to understand the significance of education by this age.

Importance of Value-based Education

BJS is concentrating much on providing value based education to students and guide teachers to provide value education. The moral values present a true perspective of the development of any society or nation. They tell us to what extent a society or nation has developed itself. Values are virtues, ideals and qualities on which actions and beliefs are based. Values are guiding principles that shape our world outlook, attitudes and conduct. Values however are either innate or acquired. Innate values are our inborn divine virtues such as love, peace, happiness, mercy and compassion as well as the positive moral qualities such as respect, humility, tolerance, responsibility, cooperation, honesty and simplicity.

The main causes of moral degeneration are:

- Lack of respect for the sanctity of human life.

- Breakdown of parental control of children in families

- Lack of respect for authority

-Total disregard for rules and regulations

- Crime and corruption

- Abuse of alcohol and drugs

- Abuse of women and children, and other vulnerable members of society.

- Lack of respect for other people and property

- Inadequate living and social conditions like lack of proper education

To solve all these type problems, it is necessary to know the main causes of the above problems. We know today’s children are tomorrow's citizens. If we give good education to the present day children, the future of the next generations will be good. For BJS, education is the solution for all types of these problems. Now we are living in the modern century. If we use science and technology in the proper way, it is not difficult for us to solve all the problems of the non-moral and value things. The main object of the study is to inculcate moral and value based education in schools and colleges and to know the attitude of intermediate students towards moral values.

BJS brought 200 children from farmer suicide affected families of Marathwada to WERC, Pune for educational rehabilitation.

In the month of November, Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS) conducted survey in 434 farmer suicide affected families of  Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts of marathwada region and brought 120 children to WERC, Pune.  And on 2nd December 2015, 80 students have been brought, after conducting survey in 350 families in remaining five districts of Marathwada namely, Aurangabad, Jalna, parbhani, Hingoli and Naded. In this manner, the two phases of survey have been conducted and children have been brought successfully to Pune for their educational rehabilitation. BJS have taken up the complete responsibility of these students from entire parts of Marathwada for giving them free education.

These children have started the new life with the new school in Pune.  Along with quality education, BJS is giving every opportunity for their growth such as nutritious food, regular health checkups, games, sports, arts and all other extracurricular activities and computer training. BJS have formed a Mental Health Department for WERC students under the leadership and guidance of the well known psychologist Dr. Kinjal Goyal. This is going to be the great help for monitoring the mental health of each and every student of WERC. 

 

In this way, BJS is trying to handle this project of education rehabilitation of farmer suicide affected students, giving importance to each and every aspect. These students from all remaining districts of Marathwada have come BJS WERC today, 2^nd of December after the meeting and farewell at their respective districts on the previous day. These children have started their daily school routine at WERC.

Health is Wealth, We take care of your Health...

Initiative was taken by BJS to provide healthcare services to meet the immediate and long-term health care needs of the children who were brought from Marathwada Region for Education Rehabilitation in WERC, Pune on 22 November 2015. The medical camp provided basic treatment and general check up to help children and curative care was also administered. BJS appointed a team of doctors varying from dentists, gynecologists, general physicians, nurses and assistants who worked tirelessly to make sure that every student is attended to. The common pattern noticed during blood checkup is that many children lacked hemoglobin. Extensive measures are planned to take care of this. A medical report card of each student is being made and is available for future reference.

 

The Dream Realised!

As the result of 21 days of hard work of BJS community, the children from Marathwda region who was the victims of farming crisis due to farmer suicides have reached Wagoli Education Rehabilitation Centre. They were officially welcomed to the school in the presence of Shri Sharath Pawar, the Veteran Leader and Shri Girish Bapat Cabinet Minister, GoM at BJS WERC Pune ON 21 Novemeber, 2015. It is a beginning for a new life for the children as they begin to start dream big from now and build up the confidence  to face the future and bring up themselves and their respective families. And it is a dream realised for BJS community.

All set to welcome Children in WERC, Pune

The project empowerment of the next generation is very close to realization. It was a challenging, crucial and demanding journey of 25 days. The plan was deployed in very short span of time. From project plan to survey, from data entry to execution of plan, the entire team  worked together in strict deadlines and the hard work showed the result. On 20th children are starting from their respective districts to Pune WERC.

Against the prevailing backdrop, Shri Shantilal Muttha- founder BJS, conceptualized the entire project of bringing children of families of farmer committed suicides to Pune and a decision to go ahead was collectively taken by the BJS Prabandh Samiti on 25th October 2015. Moving with great alacrity in view of the growing urgency of the situation, a project management team was formed headed by BJS district office bearers in the respective districts and senior staff from Pune WERC. 

That was followed by the formation of survey teams who were to conduct a detailed survey of the affected households. For the first time female surveyors were being sent out to be able to easily establish an emotional connect with the women survivors from the affected households who had lost their male member. 13 such teams were formed with each comprising a female teacher from the BJS Wagholi or Pimpiri school, a local female Mulyavardhan teacher and 2-3 local BJS volunteers to assist in the logistic arrangements. A comprehensive training of the surveyor teams was held on 30th Oct at the BJS Head Office, Pune. The actual survey of around 450 households across the three districts culminated on 3rd November, the findings of which have been presented later. The children from Std V-Std XII will be brought to Pune on 21st November and their classes will commence on 23rd Nov.

After processing the formalities of school and hostel admissions by seeking the necessary permissions from the concerned authorities, the children will be provided specialized care in several ways for which the WERC school and hostel staff will be specially trained. Proper records of the health (physical and psychological) of every child will be maintained after a thorough check up followed by counseling sessions by seasoned psychologists and diet plans drawn up by nutritionists for the children. At WERC the children will also undergo a baseline assessment to gauge their academic levels and a remedial support will be provided for the children to catch up on the academic front.

All for Smiles

 For the causes behind this agrarian crisis to cease to exist, it will take a concerted effort from a legislative, executive and social standpoint. However given the status quo, with this project BJS hopes to be the silver lining for every dark cloud that has descended upon these families. It is a determined attempt to save and secure the future of an entire generation in these villages for which a conscious effort is being made to provide a long term support to the children. For all those children who stand at the threshold of a new horizon BJS is eager to embrace them with open arms.

Educational Rehabilitation of children of farm suicides

"The emerging farmer suicide capital of India" isn't a qualifier which any region in the world would ever want to allude to itself. Sadly Marathwada, a historically backward region of Maharashtra has been a helpless witness, falling prey to a yet another vicious phenomenon of farmer suicides over last few years. It is no wonder then that Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS), a leading nonprofit organization with an extensive experience in disaster response has felt the urge to extend its maximum contribution to alleviate the woes of the bereaved families. The rapidly spreading problem of farmer suicides is nothing short of a disaster and BJS aims to address a potentially bigger problem emanating from this scenario in a manner which holds the promise of having a long lasting impact on the lives of the survivors of the suicide victims.

The loss of a loved one and especially an earning member always deals a cruel blow to the kith and kin of the victim. Matters become worse for the impoverished and the marginalized sections of the society; the economic impact of the tragedy gets compounded by the psychological impact on the traumatized family members. At such times children belonging to such families become the most vulnerable of the lot and nothing can prepare them enough for the multitude of challenges that come in the wake of such a tragedy. It is extremely crucial to provide a conducive psychosocial environment to such children in order to prevent them from succumbing to cycles of trauma, depression and loss of purpose in their early lives. The hard hitting reality of the loss of income and life often leaves very little choice for the surviving elders in the family, but to go out and work (especially for sugarcane cutting as in Marathwada)to keep the hearth running. Very often the children are left alone at home to fend for themselves. In the absence of proper care and timely attention to such children, myriad social problems could surface in the long run for them. Thus it is critical to constructively engage them and channelize their minds in the proper direction when tragedy strikes. Education is by far, the only means to shape the lives of such children and keep them from going astray.

It is with this intent and after looking at the grim picture of the Marathwada region, that the project of the educational rehabilitation of the children (boys and girls) from  the households of farmers who have committed suicides across Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts has been undertaken by BJS. BJS would do so by relocating the children, identified through a planned mechanism and moving them to its state-of-the-art Wagholi EducationalRehabilitation Centre (WERC) in Pune. WERC is a facility established by BJS specifically for such purpose since the 1993 Latur earthquake. BJS has a successful history and a proven track record of rehabilitating over 3000 disaster affected children since then.

BJS believes that for a crisis so acute, the intervention has to be long term and is therefore ready to invest close to a decade on every child who will thus be brought to WERC. This project will entail that the responsibility of the holistic education, food, accommodation, daily needs, counseling, healthcare and nutrition of all these children would be entirely borne by BJS from Std V- XII.  We are hopeful that this project will bring a ray of hope in the lives of the families of these children as much as it will be a life changing experience for the children themselves.