The New Year began with inspiration and gratitude, as we travelled to the Nandurbar region in Maharashtra to personally see a Circle of Hope (CoH) project in action. We wanted a way to keep our members informed about the everyday work that the program does during the other 11 months of the year. The New England CoH has been supporting a multilingual education project for children in tribal districts and creating curriculum and documenting stories under the Learning and Migration Program (LAMP). While preserving the local language, it has helped children reduce the gap in learning of the mainstream language of Marathi, and shown a triple impact in language, math and science.
It was a memorable journey in many ways. The day started with a ride from Surat to Nandurbar, which is about a 4 hour drive, staying overnight at Nandurbar, and continuing the journey to the tribal villages the next day. Morning brought sunshine and a beautiful ride to the hilly terrain of the Satpura region. Dotted with cotton fields, water lilies in the small lakes, and red chilies being dried in the countryside, we stopped at a local farm run by tribal farmers that were growing sweet and juicy strawberries.
When we arrived at the site of our visit, children dressed in regional attire greeted us with a welcome song and presented a skit to showcase how the program has made a change in their learning. We gathered around the children, facilitators, parents and teachers to interact and learn more. The smiling and enthusiastic children’s faces invigorated us. Many of them shared the stories of how the dictionary of words with visual illustrations and the books with stories created by the AIF CoH team has accelerated their learning in the classroom. When asked about girls’ education, one parent piped in saying the modern world looks at boys and girls the same way and they want to support girls going to college. Teachers were happy using the language learning aids developed by the AIF team and showed us the kits that helped them bridge the gap in learning. We asked the children many queries – what they want to be, do they enjoy learning and how do they understand – a few were shy but some boldly answered and offered to even perform a local song and dance for us. We found the interaction engaging and heartwarming.
After distributing stationary kits to the children, we headed to the next village and met the local village head, the Sarpanch, and the kids and parents of the program. The local head shared a story on how he had travelled to a neighboring village to participate in some activity and felt that the language he spoke limited his interaction with the people there. It made him realize the power of multilingual learning and how it can help in individual growth. So, when the AIF team had approached him to implement this in the village, he was happy. Now he speaks more than one language and encourages others to learn the same.
After a terrific lunch at a local farm, we had a debrief with the LAMP team, including Pratyush Das and Kishore Gharat, and the facilitators of the program. We discussed future possibilities to enhance the learning experience and how we can scale and replicate this in other places.
We came away with a very good feeling on the impact we are creating. While creating change, we ourselves came away changed. While CoH has supported this grant, we received just as much, the joy of learning and interacting with the local people who enhanced the experience of our visit.
Nirmala Garimella and Farida Kathawalla are the co-founders of Circle of Hope (CoH). They visited a LAMP project supported by NE CoH, in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, in January 2024.
The Circle of Hope (CoH) initiative by New England was launched in 2017 as a giving circle of women, for women and by women to support women and girls in India. Currently active across all 4 chapters, CoH has since collectively contributed more than $450,000 to AIF projects. It has been empowering women and girls, supporting self-defense training, digital literacy in the classroom, migrant girls’ education and maternal health. COH members believe that women-led collective giving leads the way for gender equality.
2024 NE members include: Rummana Alam, Masooma Bhaiwala, Preetha Chally, Manisha Eckton, Deepa Acharya- Gupta, Mona Godbole, Veena Handa, Namita Krishnan, Sharda Kaul, Vinodini Murugesan, Maeghan Oberoi-Smith, Neeru Oberoi, Asha Aman Patel, Farhat Rangwala, Madhavi Reddy, Meena Subramanyam, Pratima Srinivasan, Sangita Thakore, Sunita Kanesathasan, Farida Kathawalla (CoH Co-Founder), Nirmala Garimella (CoH Co-Founder) Alankrita Narang (Communications Lead).
