Site visit by Ajay Gupta, volunteer at Asha Chicago. 
11th January, 2007

I reached Bidar at about 12:30pm; four hours after boarding the bus at Hyderabad.   Mr Meril, the program coordinator of Aralu, was there to receive me.  He then took me to his office where I met the others in his workplace.  Aralu is a secular, non-profit, non-political voluntary welfare organization. They operate in the backward and drought prone areas of the Bidar district.  Their activities include education of children, child rights education, self help groups for the women, watershed and agricultural development programs.

Mr Meril and I then went to a self help group (SHG) in a nearby village and participated in a meeting with the members of the group.  Each self help group allows a maximum of 20 members and holds a meeting once a month.  By happy coincidence they were holding a meeting that very day.  These women get together to collectively discuss and solve their problems, under the guidance of Lalita Madam.  They also operate a savings scheme and give out loans to needy members of the group.  

I inquired about the problems they faced.  They articulated quite a few problems.  One was about the alcoholism of their menfolk.  Another was about the lack of implementation of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act.  One woman mentioned that she was asked to sign that she had received compensation under the scheme for the required 100 days while she only got paid for two days.  She refused.  I said that I could not take this issue up and that they would have to try to solve this problem on their own.  Mr Meril said that he and others had petitioned the officials and leaders in that area to look into this problem.  

I then asked if they had any problems related to education.  I asked if all their children went to school.  They replied that they did.  Most of the schools in the villages were only up to class 8 and schools with higher classes usually required some amount of travel.  The women said that after their daughters reached puberty, they were unwilling to send the girls to distant schools for higher education.  We tried to convey to the women that girls' education was important and that there were ways and means to tackle the issue.  But the women seemed unconvinced.  This is a difficult issue and tackling it needs community and external involvement in the sense of providing a safe environment and convenient means for travel.  I have read that the most acute dropout scenario is in the move from class 8 to 9 and this could be a possible reason for this phenomenon. We also had discussion about superstitions and how education can help eliminate them.          

After lunch, Mr. Meril and I showed up at the pre-primary care (PPC) center that is funded by Asha Chicago.  Aralu initially managed two PPCs and one of them has been successfully converted to a government-run Anganwadi.  There were about  30 children at this PPC and the parents were mostly agricultural workers.  They children were partly curious and partly shy about the stranger visiting them.  They sang some songs and recited their ABCs and their numbers.  It was very touching to see their performances.     

Next we went to the residential bridge school that is partially funded by Asha Chicago.  These students had not enrolled in school at the appropriate age and were now being brought up to speed in this special school to facilitate inclusion into mainstream schooling ultimately.  I met the teacher and warden at the school.  The students were drawn form various villages in the area.  Mr Meril said that they scouted the area and tried to find students who needed "bridging".  Sometimes parents themselves approached them.  

I spent some time with the students.  Each introduced himself/herself and mentioned their place of origin and what they were occupied with before joining the school.  Many used to take animals out to graze.  I engaged the students with questions about Indian geography, the Indian political set-up, history related to India's freedom struggle, the Indian cricket team and basic accounting math.  They were most responsive when I asked questions about the Indian cricket team.  I asked them about their career aspirations - one student replied that he wanted to be a doctor.  Eventually, I was given a tour of the four rooms in the building.  It was evening and we started for the bus terminal for my journey back to Hyderabad. 

The trip was over.  It was an inspiring experience to see the commitment and drive of all the people involved.  It is wonderful to see that change that Asha and the project partners are able to collectively bring about.  However, there is scope for improvement.  While I got a qualitative sense of the good work being done, I am unaware of how well it is being done.  Unless the project partners and Asha adopt a metric-based approach, the impact becomes hard to judge, analyse, compare, improve and replicate.