Graduate Student Rashi Jain is running in a marathon to raise money for a program to set up Radio Schools for rural Adivasi communities in India. Please help support her cause!
We are brought up to believe that every child has the right to education. Yet there are many children, especially those in the remote corners of the world, who fail to receive even basic education. This is true for the Adivasi (tribal) children in India too. The reasons range from limited resources to inadequate understanding of the Adivasi world.
The Radio Schools attempt to overcome these problems through some very simple premises:
• Where teachers cannot go, transistor sets go.
• Education can be started with oral learning.
• Adivasi children are adept at oral learning.The instructional materials developed by teachers from the Academy correspond closely to those in formal schools, but they are tailored to fit into the oral medium in the local language. The radio allows the child to relate home speech/tribal speech to book speech. The lessons combine formal education concepts, along with knowledge of local songs, stories, ecology, science and technology. It is a fact that the oral literature of the Adivasi is intermixed with song, dance, music, ritual and crafts, all integral parts of daily life. Teachers from within the community help the children tune in to the lessons, supervise their homework and give them feedback. In the initial two to three years, Bhasha puts these children under the care of the teacher; in the third or fourth year, they are introduced to the skills of writing and reading. This helps them catch up with the others at the board examinations stage.
In simple words, the brains at Bhasha have endeavored to think “out of the box” to come up with a practical solution to a seemingly impossible situation. What it needs now is support, from all of us.
More information on Bhasha can be found here.
We worked very closely with Bhasha in making our film. They do truly impressive work and deserve your support!
Good luck Rashi!
{Bhasha, Adivasi, development, radio}
