Many children, though of school going age, are unable to attend mainstream schools due to various reasons. These reasons many times are related to security and safety of children. Parents are unwilling to send the children out of the construction site premises.
Community Learning Centers are set up in a slum community to cater to the children who live here. These centers primarily offer a quiet place to study, read books and finish homework; an environment otherwise not available to these children.
Making provisions for school transport for children is an essential service, particularly in Pune which is known for its heavy and undisciplined traffic. Transport is needed to bring children to the Municipal schools as well as for collecting them from different construction sites to one location for conducting classes.
The Childcare facility was mainly started at construction sites to take care of the younger siblings of the NFE students. If there is a younger sibling to look after it is not possible for the older sibling to attend school. Therefore, it becomes imperative for us to take care of the young ones too.
We identify communities, like migrant worker’s children, street children, and fishermen’s children, and then try to establish classes as quickly as possible for them. The aim is to get them to the level where they can enroll in regular school.
The dropout rate of children enrolled in Municipal Schools is a cause for concern in the battle against illiteracy. Study classes run by us offer students in class I and II extra tuition and help in order to cope with school.
Balwadi is one of the four major programs of Door Step School. Planned from its inception as an effective method to address the problem of non-enrollment, it helps in identifying children who are ready for school admission and prepares them for schooling.
