Child Education Project | Bihar India | Jan Kalyan Samiti & Smile Foundation

Smile Foundation has initiated an integrated child education and health care initiative in Vaishali district

of Bihar state – with special focus on orphan and destitute children in the age group of 3-14 years.

Jan Kalyan Samiti Chakwaja is the local partner for this project. Five villages are included in this

intervention.

The five villages are under Belser blocks in Vaishali District, North Bihar. It is most backward and

thickly populated area. About 70 % of the people are below poverty line with the population mostly

comprising of dalits, marginal farmers and landless labourers. Their main occupations are centered

on agriculture and the area is prone to frequent floods. This makes their life economically miserable

with issues like education and health care remaining just a luxury.

Smile Foundation is running five non formal education (NFE) centres under this project. The project will cover 150 orphan and destitute children, between the

age group of 3-14 years. They are either run-away children, orphans, destitute, working children or bonded child labour who have never enrolled in a school.

The identified 150 children include 50 girls and 100 boys in the age group of 3 years to 16 years. They have been provided rehabilitation (separate for boys and

girls), health care, food, counselling and basic primary education up to class VII in the Non Formal Centres located near the rehabilitation houses. The project is

being implemented in one Block named Patedhi – Belsar of Vaishali District, Bihar covering five villages, namely Chakwaja, Nagwan, Chakia, Mishraulia

Thirty children have been enrolled in each centre. A few local volunteers are also imparting basic education and thereafter the children will be mainstreamed

into formal schools.

JAN KALYAN SAMITI CHAKWAJA is a registered non-government organization, established in 1972, by Mr. Pradyuman Kumar, a social activist. Its head office is

at Lok Seva Asharm Chakwaja, near Kurhani in Vaishali district of Bihar.

The organization since its inception aims to provide awareness, rehabilitation, livelihood, healthcare and basic primary education to orphan and bonded children

who are rescued. The organization has received support from host of national and international organizations like United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on

contemporary forms of slavery.

·      Establish a low cost scalable / holistic model for providing individualized, socially responsive and quality education to these deprived children and address nutritional and other health care needs through quarterly health camps

·      To increase enrollment and retention rates in the non formal education centers in the project villages

·      Organizing Community Level Awareness programs motivational meeting on education, health and social issues

·      Identification and enrollment of working children through counseling employers and parents in the non formal education centres

·      Developing minimum levels of learning through teaching basic language, mathematical and general knowledge to the enrolled children in the non formal
education centres

·      Mainstreaming children of the centers into formal schools after 1 year of intervention and their retention in school ensured through follow–ups

·        Severely malnutritioned and anemic girls will be given proper care.