LNST Zone

Programs in LNST Zone were established in 1995, since the inception of Pratham in Mumbai. The operational area of the zone stretches from from Kurla to Mulund. The first program to begin in this zone in 1995 was the Balwadi Program.

The Balsakhi Program,a remedial tutoring education intervention implemented in schools to improve learning outcomes was first started in the Municipal schools in collaboration with the MCGM in 1999. The next program to be initiated in the Zone in 2002 was the Community Center program. This was slightly different from the rest of the programs as it was fee based. Currently the core programs in the LNST Zone are the library, support class and parent education programs.

● Balwadi :

The Pratham Balwadi program runs for 3 hours. The timetable is decided according to the age of the children, which is generally between 3 - 5 years. We train children in language, math and free play. Physical play is also included in the balwadi curriculum because it is important for the children to develop physically. In 2017-18 5 Balwadis operated in the LNST Zone.

● Parent Education Program :

This programme is conducted for parents of the children in the age group of 3 - 8 years. Various activities are conducted with the parents. They are given worksheets, which involve the children as well, so that they can solve them together. For the parents who cannot attend the community intervention workshop, a home visit is conducted to explain the daily happenings and give worksheets etc. These activities try to involve parents in the day-to-day activities of the children In 2017-18 this program ran in 102 locations throughout the zone.

● Library :

The objectives of the Community Library Program are to develop the reading habit among the children, increase their competencies in language and their knowledge and to increase community participation. In Pratham’s quest to build sustainable communities, where ownership and responsibility of education and sustaining learning levels of children is shared by the community, the Mumbai team switched to the volunteer based model to implement the Community Library program in 2017-18. Each community has atleast 4 volunteers. These volunteers are private tuition teachers, support class teachers, parents, students, and anganwadi teachers. One volunteer roughly distribute books to 10 children. Overall, every child through this volunteer mode gets an avg. of minimum 4 books to read in a month as against the planned target of 2 books per month per child. The programme currently runs in all the 103 communities in the Zone.

● Urban Learning Camp :

The urban learning camp is conducted for children of age group 6 - 14 years. The children undergo training in language & math for 20 - 40 hours. The ULC conducts activities through group learning activities. In 2017-18, there were 89 operational support class units in the LNST Zone.

The Urban learning camp has the following activities:

Language:

The objective of the language camp is that the children improve their reading, writing and speaking skills. In order to achieve the classes have various topics such as oral and written comprehension, essay writing and so on.

Maths:

The objective of the maths camp is to improve the children’s ability to recognise basic numbers and perform basic mathematical operations. The children should be able to recognise numbers from 1 to 10,000 and perform basic mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication & division, and carry-over system.

In 2017- 18 Pratham reached 10610 children through various programs in the LNST Zone.

On the 24th of February 2018 the LNST zone had organised an event to Appreciate all the volunteers who are part of the Community Library Program.

A total of 356 volunteers attended the event and were honored by presenting them with a certificate and a badge. There was a Panel Discussion which had different types of volunteers such as school children and parents. During this Panel Discussion the volunteers were asked regarding the benefits of the program, the learning improvement seen within the children and their own learning improvement.

The volunteers response with regards to these questions was that
• the program has increased community participation,
• the volunteers are seeing a marked improvement in the reading ability and interest of the child and
• the volunteers themselves have benefited from being a part of the program as they have improved their language competencies and knowledge.

The event was graced by different dignitaries such as principals of various schools within the zone, school teachers and local Police Officers. There were performances by the children as well. The event ended with the city head thanking and felicitating the entire city team for their continuous efforts in making the program a success.

Thane Anganwadi Supervisors Training
There is a training of Anganwadi Supervisors which is being conducted from the 5th -7th of April at the Panchayat Samiti in Kalyan. A total of 50 supervisors are participating in this training. Yesterday was the First day of the Training, the Pratham staff conducting the training divided the supervisors into groups and various ground rules which were to be followed were developed, the various learning techniques and games to be taught to the parents and the children were also taught to the supervisors. At the end of the day there was a feedback session in which the supervisors expressed that they had learnt a lot regarding dealing with the parents and children as well as other learning techniques and values. The CEO also expressed his gratitude and stated that Pratham had a lot of unique and useful techniques and information that the supervisors need to and should learn.