HOPE believes every child has the right to receive an education. It is key to building an independent, successful life and gives a child a better chance of escaping poverty.
Education gives children an opportunity to find their strengths and empowers them to pursue a career, to eventually provide for themselves as adults.
HOPE understands that education is critical for the development of society as a whole. By giving more children access to education, the benefits will inevitably filter through into the wider community. It means that more children can live free from exploitation.
HOPE's goal is to enable and support children and young people in their education, to bring children to education and to increase student retention.
At HOPE, we believe that childhood should be a time of fun and learning.
HOPE’s Holistic Education Program for Underprivileged Children in the slums of Kolkata ensures the basic educational rights of poor children between the ages of 6-18 years, living in derelict and sprawling slums. This programme is being implemented in collaboration with Samagra Shiksha Mission. The successful implementation of Phase-I of the programme has already had a very positive impact on the slum communities:
- 96% of children aged 6-14 years are attending school throughout the slums in which HOPE operates.
- 75% amongst 15-17 years.
- Intervention has resulted in a reduction of drop-out from formal schools – 75% in 2005 v 13% in 2014.
- Increase awareness of rights and entitlements within communities.
Pre-primary education is provided to children aged 2-5 years in a fun, energetic and child-friendly environment. Children are encouraged to learn through play in 4 HOPE run crèches. These projects act as a stepping stone into mainstream formal schools. The program integrates all aspects of child care covering physical, cognitive, emotional, social and cultural aspects of child development.
The crèche caregivers use activity-based and child centric methodologies of teaching, using Montessori and Froebel techniques for the holistic development of each child. The caregivers also take responsibility for the children while they are in the crèche; planning their daily routines regarding hygiene, nutrition and immunization.
HOPE's original Nabadisha projects began in 2004 in partnership with The Kolkata Police. HOPE originally ran Nabadisha projects in Gariahat, Topsia, New Market and Tollygunge. In 2017, HOPE opened its own centres, which were renamed Nabo Asha (New Hope) centres, in Gariahat, Topsia, New Market, GD Park and Central to provide educational support and empowerment to hundreds of children across Kolkata who are forced to call the streets their homes, children who are engaged in child labour and child beggars.
The centres provide underprivileged and disadvantaged children with education, healthcare and nutritional support, necessities often denied them due to lack of family income.
Orphaned and abandoned children with special needs in the SICW (one of our NGO partners) Home are provided with care and protection to ensure their physical and mental development, ensuring that they are empowered to become as self-reliant as possible.
These include children with special needs suffering from various forms of disability, from Down’s syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and Autism to Thalassemia etc.
HOPE provides coaching support to these children, through which they learn tailored life skills, preparing them to be placed in families or other organizations where their holistic development is ensured.
HOPE has set up two barrier-free centres for children with special needs from under-served communities in Kolkata and Howrah to ensure their access to functional therapy. The objective is to improve their quality of life by giving them access to important resources such as aids, appliances, and appropriate therapies along with special and inclusive education in schools. The parents are informed about disability, inclusive education, and government schemes. They also receive training to support the children and are motivated to provide continuous support to their children.
A disability-friendly customised bus is being used to ensure children with special needs access the resource centre in Kolkata.
One of our most recent projects, the Education on Wheels program has been developed to provide coaching support on a specially customised bus to under-served children aged 6-14 from Chitpur Slum and the surrounding area in North Kolkata, who are going to school or who will be enrolled in school through the program.
The support provided, are similar to the Naboasha centres that support street-connected children. Currently, 60 children are enrolled in the program.
