The "Don Bosco" Technical Institute of Henderson has therefore launched a project to guarantee education to these children. This literacy programme serves children, who are in the school-going age, but are too poor to attend even a government school. These are children of rag pickers in the dump site.
How the Salesians enrol children to the Literacy centre:
"We do a survey of the locality to identify the children who do not attend any school at all. We contact the parents and leaders of the landfill-site. We collect information about the children names, age, gender, as well as the occupation of their parents and we bring them to Don Bosco by truck in the morning and drop them back in the afternoon
We give “Intensive coaching”, in Mathematics and English only. The omission of the other subjects is based on the principle that in primary school all that children acquire are the tools for learning in the higher classes. Values, attitudes, hygiene, etc. are given the utmost importance.
We don’t give textbooks. We make our own syllabus and lesson plans according to the class or level they are at. The system is “joyful learning”, using games, songs, and varieties of creative activities.Children are separated into groups according to their progress and speed of learning. Periodic evaluations are done and the children may move to a higher level or to a lower one according to their performance can needs.
The programme is meant to be for one year only, but all the 12 months of the year. At the end of the year, after completion of the course, promotion results and certificates will be awarded according to their performance. We are also studying the possibilities of enrolling them in regular schools in the following year.
“Joyful learning” and a meal/snacks at mid-day serve as additional incentives for the children to come to “school”.
We provide Note-books, pencils, erasers, rulers, sharpeners and chart books to the students. Half-a-day each week, the teachers go on house-visits to the homes of the children".
