By Lizzie Guinness | Programme Manager
Ritika is 13 years old and lives in a small village in Goa. She has been attending our study class for the last 6 years. She lives with parents and her brother and sister. Her mum is a housewife and her father does farm labouring jobs in the nearby area as and when they are available. The family has a very limited income but her parents have always been committed to getting their children a good education.
When we started the study class in this village, it was hard for our teacher to engage the children and parents. By combining more academic study in key subjects with weekly fun classes, the classes soon became popular with children. Once other parents saw the development in the children attending, they also wanted their children to attend regularly.
When Ritika joined the class, she didn’t know the basic languages, like Marathi alphabet, English alphabets. She found it hard to recognise words or numbers. School teachers also complained to her mother regularly about her study, but her mother was not able to support her as she was illiterate.
Our study class teacher gave extra time to her. She used natural resources to help the children understand Maths, such as stones, small sticks, paper and encouraged the children to play educational games like shopkeeper, numbers games etc. This helped Ritika to start to improve her basic level of writing, recognising and reading. By giving her small example in Maths she increased her mathematical development.
Ritika is now regularly going to school, does her homework, passes with good marks in her class and participates school activities very happily.
When her school teacher noted her improvement, she asked about this and after knowing the facts, she was very happy and offer school building class for study class.
Ritika has now become a very smart girl. She is studying now in VIIIth class. She is confidently involved in school activities, class activities, regular in school and class. She wants to become a good teacher. She helps other children in their study. She always comes to class very neat and clean. Her mother is very happy to see her progress. She improved her grades in school exams. We are confident that a positive future lies ahead for her.
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