Note: The following blog is co-authored by AIF Fellows Sidharth Hendre and Samhita Vadapalli, and captures their experiences with a collaborative project in the domain of holistic education for children from lower income government schools.

It all started with a simple question: “What are your plans for the summer?”

When Sidharth Hendre first posed this question to one of the children at the government school that he was working in, a bright-eyed boy named Venkat (name changed) from class 8, he was expecting a light-hearted answer. To his surprise, Venkat’s eyes immediately filled with tears. He went on to explain that most of his summer would be spent helping his mother, who worked as a house-help in the neighbouring apartments. The disappointment etched onto his face moved Sidharth deeply, and turned out to be one of the most defining experiences of his Fellowship journey.

The reality is that NBT Nagar and Mahatma Gandhi Nagar are localities in Hyderabad that are home to more than 2000 children, who like Venkat, come from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. Children coming from lower-income and marginalized communities lack access to appropriate mentorship and supportive infrastructure, which can hinder their holistic development. During the summer months when school is closed, an overwhelming number of these children end up pursuing alternative sources of income as child labourers, which can be detrimental to their mental and physical wellbeing.

In addition, the education that is provided within most lower-income government schools isn’t holistic in nature. It is extremely important to ensure that young children are given a multidimensional education, which ensures their holistic growth and well-being, including but not limited to physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and moral growth.

In order to address this issue, Sidharth worked with his host organisation, Kriti Social Initiatives, in order to develop a 4-week long summer camp, focused on holistic education. The summer camp aimed to engage, empower and teach the children at NBT Nagar and Mahatma Gandhi Nagar government schools, through foundational literacy and numeracy, robotics, art, social emotional learning and culture. Weeks 1 and 2 geared the children towards a science fair exhibition, while weeks 3 and 4 focused on cultural engagement and performances.

When Samhita Vadapalli, AIF Fellow placed with Satya Special School, first heard of the summer camp, she found that she was immediately drawn to the project and its mission of empowering children in need. She immediately offered to volunteer and participate, with the hope of learning something new from the experience.

The summer camp followed a volunteer-student model where young adolescents were placed as volunteers within classrooms in NBT and MGN government schools. The volunteers came from a diverse range of socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, ranging from international schools in Hyderabad to youth empowerment organisations. By bringing together volunteers from different backgrounds, this model promoted cross-cultural exchange and understanding. It allowed the volunteers to learn not only from one another but also from the students through mutual peer to peer learning. It provided a space for the children to share their experiences and gain a broader perspective from the experiences of others.

The summer camp curriculum included classes focused on foundational literacy and numeracy, robotics, art and craft, as well as cultural performances. Through partnerships with Hyderabad Runners, Pravah, Rubaroo, and Udayan, the summer camp reached approximately 150+ students across both schools with 50+ volunteers.

Foundational Literacy & Numeracy (FLN)

Foundational Literacy and Numeracy enable every child to read, write, comprehend, and develop number sense, mathematical thinking, problem solving, and reasoning. Between the ages of 6 and 14, more than 95% of Indian children are enrolled in school. Even though many of these kids have been in school for a while, they still lack the foundational skills needed to advance.

The curriculum development for FLN focused on designing a booklet for Math that included the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions. The students solved each worksheet every day for 30 minutes for a month. 

For English, the designed curriculum provided exposure to story videos in English that the children would watch, comprehend, and explore. In an attempt to make students more confident about their English speaking abilities, worksheets revolving around vocabulary and spoken English skills were developed. 

The science curriculum was highly interactive, and included science experiments to teach the children about the concepts of surface tension, magnetism, acids and bases, static electricity, and more.  With this, the students were encouraged towards a science fair exhibition towards the end of week two of the summer camp. 

Robotics and Art & Craft

Robotics encourages kids to think creatively and to build and design solutions to real-world problems. When challenges grow, it teaches students to come up with unique and out-of-the-box solutions. It enables students to come up with innovative ideas and solutions when problems arise. A 21 day robotics workshop was conducted where the students conducted 21 different robotics experiments, including the building of a smart-dust bin and a walking aid, in order to gain a foundational understanding of the subject. A few students went on to design their own robotics projects, which were showcased at the science fair exhibition. 

In addition, art and crafts are something that are particularly neglected in government schools. It was observed that the students did not have any dedicated art and craft lessons where they could explore their creativity. Addressing this issue, the designed art curriculum included a variety of activities such as origami, colour painting, free hand drawing, sketching, and more. Most of these students had never held a paint brush before in their lives. Witnessing their excitement and curiosity as they learnt to paint for the very first time was a truly touching moment for both Samhita and Sidharth.

SEL & Cultural Performances

Students need social-emotional learning because it gives them valuable life lessons, including how to understand themselves, take ownership of their actions, and form positive relationships with others.

A two week long workshop on Social Emotional Learning and Comprehensive Sexual Education was conducted focusing on improving self-awareness, mindfulness, and empathy building. Selected students went on to do a social action project where they showcased their learning by preparing posters and performing skits about subjects such as gender equality, bullying, child marriage, and child labour. 

Additionally, students from government schools barely get any exposure to extracurricular activities like dancing, singing and sports. There has been complete negligence towards these subjects, pertaining to which these students never get an opportunity to explore their talent and interests. The cultural aspect of the summer camp provided a platform that aimed to empower the students by allowing them to explore dancing, acting, singing and athletics in their respective areas of interest. These cultural performances took place on the last day of the summer camp, which also marked the closure of the camp. 

For the Fellows, it was an absolute delight to see these students coming every day to the school, even during the summer break, and participating in all the activities with so much enthusiasm. One of Sidharth and Samhita’s biggest learnings from this experience was that, given the chance and opportunity, these students are more than capable of learning, growing, and fully committing themselves to exploring their interests. Interventions such as the summer camp help students learn and grow in a stress-free, multidimensional environment which fosters creativity and critical thinking.

Though our summer camp was a success, the question still remains: what about children like Venkat, who exist in our everyday lives? To answer this question, it is important for all of us to collectively address this issue and ask ourselves: are we doing enough?