Nandelpada-Khandeghar Visit
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Visit on 18-Jul-2015 was planned to visit Nandelpada and Khandeghar, followed by meeting with teachers from all schools.
It was a pleasant sight to see kids and parents waiting for us at Nandelpada. Despite of Eid holiday, all the kids were present in their school uniform. Team Suhrid launched the water project there. It is expected to be over within next 3 weeks and this would be our 4th such initiative. With this, they would get water in kitchen, toilets and garden. We had provided the means to store and purify the water last year, which had such a positive response that kids carry purified water in their water bottles to their home while leaving for the day. With the availability of flowing water through the taps, kids would get to learn more about cleanliness.
During our medical camp, lack of oral hygiene was marked as the key obstacle. While some of the kids do wash their teeth at home, many of them are irregular. We had observed that the experiments carried out at the mass level at the school result in kids developing good habits. To address this issue of oral hygiene, we provided brush and paste to each kid. They all would wash their teeth immediately after mid-day meal. Parents promised us to ensure that they would see to it that the kids maintain the same at home.
Parents at Nandelpada never expressed themselves openly. However, their silent support was quite evident at every step. The number of students in the first standard, increased by 20% this time. Moreover, they all grow vegetables and provide the same at highly subsidized rates to our teacher.
We had a plan to cover two schools as a part of our visit to Vikramgadh. However, improved road conditions, unexpectedly low weekend traffic and dry yet pleasant weather made us cover the distance much faster than what we estimated. Therefore, on the way to Khandeghar, we paid a surprise visit to Arvind Asharma Shala at Dadade. We had sponsored water project last Dec and could see kids getting benefited there.
Khandeghar is a small village, wherein the locals face tough challenges due to acute water shortage. They are not close to any river. Proximity to river or water reservoir is must for agriculture – especially after one monsoon crop they take – i.e. rice. Post December, the locals make their living by working at brick kiln, road constructions, sand extraction or fishing. Locals are keen on guidance and support from Suhrid Foundation on any initiative which can help them take second crop in a year in their farms. We would work with them on this in next few months.
Presence of parents very clearly indicated their support. Apart from distributing the brush, paste, cricket bat and goodies, we had a very short session on Yoga for the kids. We realized that though the teachers are given training on Yoga, some fine tuning is required to realize the maximum benefits of Yoga. We would be conducting a camp for teachers, wherein our Yoga and naturopathy expert would conduct a session for teachers, which would include Asans (stretching, asans), Pranayam, Diet and few tips on naturopathy.
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