Education for 13,000 Children in the High Himalaya
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Updates from the Field:
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Trucking in the Himalayas
By Dryan Kitchener - Project Update May 08, May 14, 2008 05:05 PM
Working in the high altitude Himalayas is more precarious than most other areas. Weather patterns limit project implementation to 6-8 months per year, as these areas are cut off by heavy snows during the winter months. In addition, global warming is causing weather patterns to change. This has meant that in April work has been slower than expected due to unseasonable weather, such as heavy rainfall in the Western Himalayas, and snowfall in the Eastern Himalayas.
The target for the Himalayan Education project this year is to establish 87 schools in remote villages, in addition to the 49 set up last year. So far 63 villages have been mobilized for school establishment and community buildings selected for the school. In 36 villages Village Education Committees have been set up of prominent community members and these have been trained in their roles: raising awareness of education in the village, maintaining the standards of the school, ensuring girl and disabled children are going to school.
While this work continues in the mountains, at the head offices in Gurgaon (close to Delhi) procurement of education materials and furniture for the 87 schools is under way. Over the next few months these will be trucked out to the remote villages. Our partner has learned from last year's experience of sending trucks out with the supplies, but them not arriving for weeks or months, since some drivers got lost and some found it was a nice opportunity to take in the scenery. This year project staff will be traveling with the drivers to make sure they get to their destination as quickly as they can - sight-seeing can be done afterwards!
Also in the Head Office, much work is being done to develop a curriculum that this culturally and environmentally appropriate to the Himalayas. It is hoped that this will be a key factor in building the confidence of Himalayan people, and result in greater education attainment since children will have greater interest in learning, rather than feeling defeated by a complex curriculum which isn't in their native language and is inappropriate to their lifestyles. To complement this, work is being done to develop vocational training courses to diversify livelihood options and provide alternatives to subsistence farming. These courses include eco-tourism, local crafts production, food and dairy processing, electronics, photography, among others.
A further 87 supplementary schools in the Himalayas
By Dryan Kitchener - Project Update April 08 - the year ahead..., April 09, 2008 06:09 PM
Thank you again for your support for the Himalayan education project; below is some latest news on developments...
The coming year is an ambitious one for the project since we aim to establish 87 supplementary schools and 13 Resource Centers in remote Himalayan villages from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the far east of India.
The challenge is increased as our team has to implement their work during the summer season before the snows come and block the passes to high altitude areas for between four to six months.
However, our team are very used to working with such constraints, and the scale of the work will be made easier since a smaller number of facilities were successfully established last year: 49 supplementary schools and 5 Resource Centers.
Presently in the Himalayas the snows are starting to thaw so most of the team are in place to begin working on this year's activities. In all areas the sites for the new schools have been selected and village education committees, comprised of prominent and interested community members, are being trained on their responsibility to maintain the new school's facilities and smooth functioning, and for raising awareness among the village about the importance of education and how local people should be taking advantage of the supplementary school.
An innovative dimension to this project is that 10 of the supplementary schools this year will be mobile (3 mobile schools were set up last year). These directly address the nomadic lifestyle of many people living in the Himalayas. Instead of having to send children out of the community to get educated, the new schools and teacher will travel with nomads as they move during the year. This way children can receive an education whilst remaining in their community, and benefit from the curriculum which has been designed to be culturally-relevant and culturally-specific.
Through the Resource Centers, a number of courses will be run to stimulate employment opportunities among youth and to raise awareness of social, environmental, and cultural issues. Courses will be run for youth in business skills and photography, with a view to earning income from the increasing tourist trade. Locally relevant courses will be held on first aid and reading and writing of bhoti, the local language which is a dialect of Tibetan.
We feel confident that the coming year will be successful in delivering these aims and contribute to the education and overall wellbeing of thousands of children from remote Himalayan communities.
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