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India

CRD – CASP Raigad

Organisation: Center for Research and Development (CRD) and Community Aid and Sponsorship Program (CASP) Raigad Unit
Address: CASP Raigad Unit, Utkarshnagar, Pen Khopoli Road, Pen, Maharashtra India
Country: India
Telephone: +91 2143 253712 or 255907 (in Raigad); +91 – 9820536530 (in Mumbai)
Fax: +91 2143 253658
E-Mail: casppen@vsnl.net; zaveri_sonal@yahoo.com
Web Site: www.caspindia.org
Contact Name: Ms Sonal Zaveri (Health Advisor)

Organisation:

CRD has been involved with Child-to-Child since 1988 and conducted the CtC evaluations of Mobile Creches, Diamond Jubilee Schools and the Malvani community program in Mumbai over three years. CRD did participatory, ongoing evaluations and helped the implementation sites to adapt and integrate the approach. Recent studies and documentation from these implementation sites indicate that lessons learned from the CtC experience have continued to enrich programs. The Mobile Creche experience was documented in a case study for early childhood development (see Child-to-Child website), the Diamond Jubilee schools underwent a long-term school improvement program and the Malvani experience informs CtC activities of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation. CASP is the program implementation wing and a sister organisation of CRD. In its CASP PLAN projects in the 1990’s, staff received training in CtC and implemented programs in schools and poor communities of Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in which teachers, health workers and children sponsored by CASP-PLAN implemented the CtC. Children were involved in data gathering and across these cities children conducted a needs assessment and planned programs. The CtC programs evolved into children’s rights programs. Numerous advocacy workshops with government, other NGOs were held. Spin-offs of The CtC program had many spin-offs including active learning methods for primary school teaching (later merging into the DPEP or District Primary Education Program, a national level school improvement program with funding from international donors) and the many drama and skit groups that emerged creating civic awareness on health and social issues in schools and communities.

Child-to-Child Activities:

Since June 2002, CASP Raigad unit in the state of Maharashtra has initiated a pilot CtC program in schools known as the Healthy Schools project. Twelve primary and upper primary schools in rural Raigad are involved. It has a teacher training component of two days for each working month in the school calendar and on site support to each school by field workers, a community health specialist, teacher trainer and youth group members. Two teachers from each school and about 600 children are involved in the program.

The Healthy Schools project works with tribal and rural children in primary and upper primary schools. The overall aim of the project is to CHETNA works and contributes in addressing the nutritional, health education and developmental needs of children and youth. CHETNA's Child-to-Child activities involve disadvantaged, special needs and street children of school going age, adolescents and youth with a special focus on girls. The overall aim of our CtC programmes is to enable and empower children so that they can gain control over their own health and contribute to the health
of their families and communities. Our objectives are:

1. To enable children to participate in their own health, education and development;
2. To advocate for appropriate systems to be put in place, e.g., medical referral system for children, as well as those which encourage the participation of children in educational and developmental processes.
   We also aim to promote gender equality, child rights and inclusive education.

CHETNA supports school based health initiatives such as a school health programme, run in collaboration with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) which includes 574 schools.

Three components are emphasized - health services, healthy environment and health education. Celebration of weeks/days/events of significance such as nutrition week (1-7 September), Breast feeding week (1-7 August) World Health Day (7 April) etc are also emphasized. Additionally, the schools are encouraged to use Balmela (the Children's fair), Gram Yatra (Village Rallies) and health camps etc for creating health awareness. Our local health and education departments have been involved in the planning
of health promotion in schools from the very beginning. We have also involved both departments in the evaluation of our activities. In working with us, they have adopted various roles, for example, as co-trainers, administrators, monitors and funders etc. However, we found that initially, it was difficult for the health and education departments to work together. Nevertheless, we overcame these early difficulties and since then, all parties have cooperated in pursuit of our goals.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Child-to-Child Activities:

The Healthy Schools Project encourages a participatory approach to monitoring. Monitoring was ongoing and included feedback at each teacher training course as well as on-site visits every month by teacher trainer or community health specialist or social worker. Because teacher training occurred every month, a review of the month’s activities always preceded planning for the following month. In March 2003, a children’s workshop was held over three days, where 50 children representing their schools reviewed, demonstrated and evaluated the work done during the school year. Children presented their knowledge and skills as well as next steps to school principals, education officials and community members on the third day. In April 2004, an evaluation was done internally with teachers and children and in April 2005 an end of project evaluation was conducted with children and teachers that tested changes in knowledge and practice using a variety of methods. The results of the evaluation have been very encouraging. Children’s committees in schools, soak pits, safe drinking water, clean communities have been some of the outcomes of the CtC. In nine out of twelve schools, there has been good change in the teachers’ ability to use more participatory methods of learning. The program has done well spite of teacher turnover. There is a growing demand for involving more schools in the district, primary rural schools as well as tribal residential schools. The ongoing monitoring and evaluation was very helpful and resulted in a mid-course change in the strategy of CtC. Youth volunteers and health workers were trained in the CtC methodology and in this way, CtC moved out of the classroom. This new strategy ensured that teachers could coordinated and expand on what they taught inside the classroom with the situation outside it with extra assistance from volunteers.

Training:

As mentioned above, training took place for two days in every school calendar month. Permission to do so was sought from the local education authorities. Initially the teacher training took place in the training center at CASP Raigad office. But feedback had indicated the need for more hands on training and a modification was made in Year 2 where teacher training took place by rotation in one of the schools. Several advantages emerged – the school hosting the meeting usually sent more teachers and the principal also attended and in this way were sensitized to the project. On the second day, children from the school came and teachers tested their new skills and received feedback from the rest of the teacher group. Teachers therefore had good hands on training and had more ownership. In addition, because so many teachers came to the village and created greater ‘visibility’ for the CtC, the school and the community were motivated to continue the program.

Use, Adaptation, Translation and Production of Child-to-Child Materials:

The Healthy Schools project used the Health Promotion in Our Schools and the Child-to-Child resource books. A number of local activity sheets were also developed such as – on soak pits, on kitchen gardening, water purification, garbage disposal and vermiculture as well as superstitions.