Starting from Scratch and Thereafter Developed Brick by Brick, Parivaar Ashram Is Being

Parivaar ( )

Introduction

General Introduction

Parivaar is a humanitarian service organisation, based in 24 Parganas (S), West Bengal, and at present is chiefly working for total care and overall development of children from categories like orphans, girl children highly vulnerable to exploitation, victimization, and trafficking, street children, abandoned children, extremely impoverished children from tribal areas and other such highly vulnerable children at Parivaar Ashram, Village- Barkalikapur, P.O. Bakhrahat, District 24 Parganas (South), West Bengal.

Starting from scratch and thereafter developed brick by brick, Parivaar Ashram is being continuously developed and moulded into a unique institution transforming the lives of each of its residential members (children and adults) and acting as a training ground of highly dedicated life-committed grassroots workers. As on 15thMarch ’10 there are 429resident childrenat Parivaar.

Parivaar Ashram also acts as a hub for multifarious service activities for scores of the villages in the vicinity. At the Parivaar Ashram campus is also located Parivaar’s own FormalSchool ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ in which the resident children of Parivaar study.

Children are admitted at a young age of 4 to 10 into Parivaar Ashram. Each resident child once admitted into Parivaar will be under the care and custody of Parivaar till higher education (graduation / post-graduation) and subsequent job placement and settlement into the future phase of life. Parivaar is and shall continue to be behind each child and pave his/her way into any future career which he/she is aspiring for and showing promise of making to, whether it is a stream graduation in humanities, commerce or sciences, or a professionaldegreeeducationinengineering/medicine. For example, children showing aptitude for meritorious professional lines like engineering or medicine or any other such lines shall be trained and fully supported (just as parents do for their own children) till completion of that higher education and subsequent placement. Our eldest group of children (with whom Parivaar started in 2003) is already in Class 10 and despite the fact that they were late-starters in academic path (trained and initiated straight into Class 4 in 2004) they are outperforming children from educated households in their respective schools, and securing top-bracket ranks.

Our Ethos and Inspiration

Parivaar’s mission is inspired by the clarion call of ‘Service of Divine in Man’ in a reverential spiritual attitude, in a spirit of worship’ given by Swami Vivekananda.

The Beginning

Parivaar was started by Vinayak Lohani (an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta), who, inspired by spiritual and humanistic ideals of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, decided to devote his entire life for serving ‘Divine in Man’ as taught by Swami Vivekananda. Immediately after passing out of IIM in 2003, with just 3 children in a small rented building with almost no financial resources, Vinayak started Parivaar. Till the level of 15 children at Parivaar, he used to take some lectures for students appearing for Management entrance examinations and through that could meet the expenses. Gradually people began to be inspired by this dedicated service and started to support the initiative and the number of children at Parivaar grew. At the end of 2004, Parivaar could purchase its own land to develop its permanent campus called Parivaar Ashram. Parivaar’s mission and theme began to attract dedicated youth, many of whom joined Parivaar Ashram as resident workers and began to become bearers of this mission.

Parivaar Ashram : Building of a Unique family

• December ‘03 : Admission of 3 children at rented building at Bonogram.
  June 30th ‘04: 59 children
  Dec 29th ‘04: Purchase of land at Barkalikapur, Bakhrahat in 24 Parganas (South)
  Dec 31st ’04: 67 children (all housed at Bonogram Centre)
  June 30th ‘05: 110 children
  Dec 31st ‘05: 145 children
  June 30th ‘06: 200 children
  April 15th ‘07: 226 children.
  May 15th '07: 250 children.
  Oct 15th '07: 280 children.
• Oct 15th ’08 : 335 children.
• March 15th ’09 : 372 children
• Dec 15th’09 : 402 children
• March 15th : 429 children.

Background And Admission Process Of Children Into Parivaar

Background

Generally children admitted into Parivaar are from categories like orphans (both whose parents have expired), street and pavement dwelling children, children with critically / terminally ill mother and no father and other family support, children from other crises background like whose father has deserted the mother and children, vulnerable girl children from prostitution-infested areas who are under the risk of being sucked into flesh trade unless equipped educationally. A large number of children are from rural areas and highly impoverished tribal areas as well where starvation and malnutrition was rampant and where daily income per family is much less than 1$. All these children, diverse though their backgrounds be, have the common characteristic that they can be armed through education if nurtured in a residential environment with basic amenities where their whole growth and progress can be gradually executed.

Admission Process

Parivaar Ashram is a Residential and overall life development institution for erstwhile destitute children. Typically Parivaar receives everyday about 5 to 10 cases of such children everyday by different field organizations, relatives or neighbors of the child in case, concerned individuals, members of local bodies, Panchayats etc. After filtering Prima Facie information, cases for site visit and detailed investigation are short-listed. Parivaar has a special Enquiry team that conducts site enquiries from where the case-request has come. This team visits the child’s existing location and collects detailed profile, facts and information of the child, based on interaction with the child’s referring persons / entity and other possible sources. This site report is then discussed and deliberated upon, and the severity of the need of the child to be admitted for a long term into Parivaar Ashram is assessed, validated and decision thereof is made. The important parameters looked into while admitting into Parivaar Ashram are as follows:

1. The child’s age during admission into Parivaar should be between 4 to 10 years, though certain exceptions are made
2. There should be no possibility of child’s dropout from this long-term stay at Parivaar Ashram until he/ she becomes of age and is able to make decision for himself / herself, grow to his / her potential and find a place as a socially dutiful, worthy individual.
3. Parivaar acts as the custodian of the child and makes all the decisions in his / her best interests.
4. The child will continue to be under Parivaar’s care, even after their legal age of adulthood (i.e. 18 years), just as in any family parents and the family continues to support their ward financially and otherwise until the child (who shall be a youth by then) has found a place for himself / herself as described above.
5. Generally, along with one child all his / her siblings are also admitted into Parivaar, as all of them are in similar conditions, and it does not make sense to develop bright future for one and leave others to languish behind. Parivaar’s principle is that all siblings should progress together and have bright futures so that their familial bonding remains intact in future.

State-wise & District-wise distribution of Children at Parivaar Ashram

State-wise & District-wise distribution of Children at Parivaar Ashram
State / District / No(s) of children
West Bengal / 24 Pgs (N) / 15
24 Pgs (S) / 94
Bankura / 35
Birbhum / 1
Burdwan / 3
Howrah / 8
Kolkata / 131
Medinipur (E) / 17
Medinipur (W) / 64
Nadia / 2
Bihar / Chhapra / 3
Navada / 4
Nalanda / 2
Jharkhand / Singbhum (E) / 50
Total No. of children / 429

Parivaar : A Brief Fact Sheet

• 429 erstwhile homeless and destitute children have found a new Home,
  Family ,and Future at Parivaar Ashram since its starting in December ‘03.
• All resident children admitted in Parivaar’s own high quality formal School ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ and in those higher Classes are in other good Formal Schools where they have got through Competitive Entrance Tests. Most of them are performing commendably, matching shoulder to shoulder with any other children from educated families.
• A second Residential Institution campus exclusively for girls is coming up and shall be operational by July 2010.
• More than 400 IIM (Indian Institute of Management) alumni are Parivaar supporters.
• Funds collected at zero fund-raising cost (funds raised totally by individuals who have turned into dedicated volunteers for supporting Parivaar). There is no outgoing fund-raising done through events or publicity campaigns. In fact there is no Parivaar worker with the role of publicity / fund-raising.
• 90% of the total financial support of Parivaar met through financial contributions from individuals. Parivaar’s support-base is very broadbased and heterogeneous . No single donor (individual or institutional) accounts for more than 10% of the total inflows of Parivaar.
• Many serious academic studies on different organisation-building facets of Parivaar have been conducted by people in academic fraternity. A few case-studies on Parivaar have been authored, which are now being used as a part of standard teaching material in many Business and Management institutes in India and abroad, particularly in the field of Entrepreneurship and Leadership.

Educational Excellence at Parivaar

Excellence is the Central Theme

Parivaar’s vision of changing lives of our children is built on the theme of positivity, of infinite possibilities that are stored within each child. In our communication with external world we have never focused on what the backgrounds of the children were, or never portrayed the miseries in which the children were or would have continued to be in had they not been in Parivaar. We feel we have achieved nothing of consequence by merely admitting the child to Parivaar. That was just the beginning. What we do now with our children is all-important. Thus our articulation is not about ‘salvation from the miserable past’ but the ‘infinite possibilities of the bright future’. We are in the grand work of sculpting lives, lives that will excel in whatever they do, and bring out the best in whatever they do.

A Brief Outline of Scheme of Education for the resident children at Parivaar.

Typically a child is admitted into Parivaar within the age group of 4 years to 10 years. All these children without exception have had no exposure to education whatsoever before being admitted into Parivaar. The youngest admittees (aged 4,5,6) are those who are rightly aged to start their academic life, and are admitted into most initial classes (Kindergarten / Class 1) since their age is in accordance with the class they are admitted into. Right from the beginning they are able to progress in their studies without any difficulty as there is a strong battery of teachers at Parivaar Ashram, who teach these children after their day school. Also the pace at which at these children are taught is just right for their age and no fast-bridging has to be done for this category since they do not have an educational backlog vis-a-vis their age.

Children admitted to Parivaar who have age of 8 to 12 (aged 8,9,10,11,12) and still not having any exposure to education, are first trained for one year through what we call ‘Fast-Learning Bridge Course’ by our battery of teachers, and then admitted into a grade suitable for their age. For example, at the end of the bridge course a 9-year-old child would be admitted in Class 4 or at least Class 3.

After-the-School-Tutorship Program

‘After-the-SchoolTutorship’ is of immense importance and is an essential component of our education efforts. There are two reasons for this:

1. The first reason flows from central theme of Parivaar that is ‘Excellence’. Parivaar’s vision is that all the resident children continuously excel from strength to strength and as per their abilities shape a bright future for themselves in various professional lines. Excellence and not mediocrity is what we aim for each child in Parivaar. Our vision is that our children continuously excel from one level to a higher level.
2. Because of the fact that many of the children have been jumped into a higher class through fast learning bridge course some children initially take time to adapt when admitted into a higher class in a formal school. But we have invariably seen that because of the focused ‘After-School Tutorship’ study hours (4 hours daily in addition to the school hours) the performance of each child in every successive examination improves.

Our team of teachers – both at Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth as well as Tutorship Program work very hard with each child, so that each child can continue to excel and learn to bring out the best from within themselves. Their academic progress is continuously noted by the teachers and other Resident elders of the Residential Institution (responsible for the overall caretaking of the children), and it is ensured that they perform and master that very day whatever is taught in the day school. During the last week in each month, detailed tests are taken for all subjects for all the children both in their School as well as in internally in the ‘After-the-School Tutorship’. This helps in continuous evaluation and correction ensuring improvement.

‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’- Parivaar’s own HighQualityFormalSchool at Parivaar Ashram premises.

Beginning and Raison d’ etre

Parivaar has started its own Formal Day School ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ located at the Parivaar Ashram premises from 1st May ’07 as a permanent ancillary institution to the Parivaar Ashram Residential Institution so that for the years and decades to come the resident children at Parivaar can attend this School and receive quality education.

The reason why we needed to start a School of our own was that it was central and essential to the scaling up of Parivaar Ashram Residential Institution, i.e. suppose from present level of 429 children, if its capacity is to be increased to 1000-2000and more in the next 3 to 5 years to come, then we would have faced a big challenge of admitting our resident children in outside quality schools as the capacity in those schools is limited. Those schools are not scaling up in the way as Parivaar Ashram would have scaled up and thus a major constraint would have come up in course of time. The only way then, would be to get rid of this external dependency, and have an ancillary institution of our own so that the whole Parivaar Ashram becomes an integrated institution.

Secondly, the quality control would have fully remained under Parivaar’s control. Since Parivaar’s mission of developing bright futures for all its resident children is so critically linked with success in the sphere of education, we wanted to have greater control over it, which would not have been possible to that extent had it been left to outside schools. Now we can have better linkage and communication between School teachers and teachers in After-School Tutorship Program. Such coordination plays a very important role in improving the performance of students. Earlier when the children were attending outside schools there could not be much regular communication between School teachers and our Parivaar teachers in ‘After-School Tutorship Program’. But now with the starting of Parivaar’s own School, both programs are under Parivaar and thus a much better coordination is there. Similarly coordination and thought-exchange between resident caretakers and teachers really helps both the sides to understand so many aspects of the children which would have otherwise remain closed to them.

Standard Operating Practices at Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth

At ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ (ABV), the quality and standard maintained is high. In the ABV, some Standard Operating Practices are followed with the following features to ensure high quality:

• Teachers who teach at the Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth do not teach in the tutorship program. This ensures that teachers both in the School as well as tutorship program are kept under the continuous challenge to perform and that there is no academic compromise.

• A Question Paper Approval Committee approves the question papers set up by the respective course teachers. They check the content of each question paper for parameters like quality, clarity and course-pervasiveness. The Committee then approves the question paper judging the whole content on the above parameters. It may also issue modifications in certain questions if it helps to strengthen it based on the above parameters. The chief purpose of this exercise is to ensure that no sub-quality question papers are administered during the Examinations and the overall standard is always maintained at a robust level.

• Similarly at the Tutorship Level, monthly internal tests are there.

• We have weekly meetings of all the teachers wherein they have to submit a ‘Statement of Activity’ undertaken during the period. All these statements as well as the highlights of the meetings are documented and permanently recorded.
• The whole content and syllabus covered by any teacher during a week is planned and submitted in advance to the School Headmistress and is generally completed within that duration.

• Fortinghtly meetings between After-School Teachers and School teachers are also held regularly. There are also many one-to-one meetings and discussions between a School teacher teaching a particular subject to a particular students group, and a ‘After-School Tutorship’ teacher teaching the corresponding subject. This has led to much greater coordination.

• Fortnightly meetings between School teachers and Residential Caretaking Staff of Parivaar Ashram are conducted which have many one-to-one meetings between teacher of a particular students group and caretaking in-charge (Housebrother / Housemother as they are called at Parivaar Ashram). Since Housebrothers/Housemothers are in role of guardian for the children at Parivaar this helps them to handle the children better, counsel them in issues which need such counselimg, and ensure that children are disciplined and focused on their tasks at hand which helps to ensure overall improved academic performance as well as healthy personality growth. Teachers also get to know various non-academic behavioural aspects of a particular child and other relevant information specific to a particular child which otherwise they would not have come to know. This also helps them to handle the children better in Classroom environment.

Qualitative & Quantitative targets for Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth for the next 3 years