All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

8
February is the Month with the least number of days BUT most work! Agreed? Well, this seemed to be true for the event and meeting intense month at CACR. On Feb 1 st CACR members were invited to the Balak mela (student fair) organized by MCGM where BMC students displayed their athletic talent .The event had Mun.Comm., AMC ,DMC, Education Committee chairman as chief guests. More Details here. On Feb 3 rd and 6 th The Deputy Edu.Officer conducted the combined monthly meeting with all school Headmasters-Hm’s and Administrative Officers-Ao’s. CACR group members attended the meeting in K/E and H/W wards and spoke about the progress of CLP- computer literacy project. To make the project sustainable we offered to train the teachers of 6 th & 7 th standards with Basic IT skills free of cost, a proposal welcomed by the department. Moving forward with implementation of CLP project students from VESIT- Vivekanand Engg. College, Chembur volunteered to begin the project in MCGM schools of Chembur and attended the one day orientation program by Mr.Swapnil from IITB. Ruia students also got oriented with the spoken tutorial program structure on Feb 6th. CACR launched its own company page on LinkedIn. You can Follow our page & stay connected. The BMC education department celebrated Sikhsan Divas on Feb 10 th on the same day our FIRST Newsletter was launched. Missed it? CLICK HERE. In the first newsletter of Jan’14 CACR reported that BMC education department has made it mandatory for Educational NGO’S occupying spaces in MCMG School to display signages to that effect. BUT when CACR visited a school in Bandra, it was found that school did not have such signage displayed despite the circular from BMC. DNA also reported on this issue on Feb 11. See the article HERE. DMC met CACR and ADAPT members to decide on the training program for MCGM school teachers and HM’s about inclusive education. More on this in the article by our Partner ADAPT below. CITIZENS ASSOCIATION FOR CHILD RIGHTS CACR NEWSLETTER FEB 2014 ALL THE ACTION of the MONTH Feb 1:Balak Mela Feb 3 and Feb 6: All HM- AO- Dy.E.O meet in K/E & H/W wards Respectively Feb 6: MCGM announces EDUCATION BUDGET for Primary education Feb 6: Meeting with BCT to review spoken English project Feb 6: IIT training completed at Ruia Feb 8:VESIT students join CLP project with IITB Feb 8: CACR company page on LinkedIn Feb 10: Launch Of First CACR Newsletter Feb 10: Sikhsan Divas in BMC schools Feb 11:DMC meeting with ADAPT &CACR Feb 11: CACR Impact- DNA reports on No Signages in MCGM schools Feb 16: MUSTRun Bandra event 400 Municipal school kids run Feb 20: CACR Invited to Discuss: “CSR in Education-Ensuring Impact” by Samhita Feb 22: List of special school children given to education department Feb 26 th :Flyer’s distributed in Bandra- Khar area for CLP project. Feb 28 th : CACR Website gets NEW sections

description

The low down of BMC budget on primary education , Volunteers talk about their volunteering experience, Our partners Spastic society of India talk about inclusive education, 70+ Gilrs run marathon on international women's day and more.........

Transcript of All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

Page 1: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

February is the Month with the least number of days BUT most work! Agreed?

Well, this seemed to be true for the event and

meeting intense month at CACR. On Feb 1st CACR

members were invited to the Balak mela (student fair)

organized by MCGM where BMC students displayed their

athletic talent .The event had Mun.Comm., AMC ,DMC,

Education Committee chairman as chief guests. More

Details here.

On Feb 3rd and 6th The Deputy Edu.Officer

conducted the combined monthly meeting with all school

Headmasters-Hm’s and Administrative Officers-Ao’s.

CACR group members attended the meeting in K/E and

H/W wards and spoke about the progress of CLP-

computer literacy project. To make the project

sustainable we offered to train the teachers of 6th & 7th

standards with Basic IT skills free of cost, a proposal

welcomed by the department. Moving forward with

implementation of CLP project students from VESIT-

Vivekanand Engg. College, Chembur volunteered to begin

the project in MCGM schools of Chembur and attended

the one day orientation program by Mr.Swapnil from

IITB. Ruia students also got oriented with the spoken

tutorial program structure on Feb 6th.

CACR launched its own company page on LinkedIn.

You can Follow our page & stay connected. The BMC

education department celebrated Sikhsan Divas on Feb

10th on the same day our FIRST Newsletter was

launched. Missed it? CLICK HERE.

In the first newsletter of Jan’14 CACR reported that

BMC education department has made it mandatory for

Educational NGO’S occupying spaces in MCMG School to

display signages to that effect. BUT when CACR visited a

school in

Bandra, it was

found that

school did not

have such

signage

displayed

despite the

circular from

BMC.

DNA also

reported on

this issue on

Feb 11. See

the article

HERE.

DMC met

CACR and

ADAPT

members to

decide on the

training

program for

MCGM school

teachers and

HM’s about

inclusive

education.

More on this

in the article

by our

Partner

ADAPT below.

CITIZENS ASSOCIATION FOR CHILD RIGHTS

CACR NEWSLETTER FEB 2014

ALL THE ACTION of the MONTH

Feb 1:Balak Mela

Feb 3 and Feb 6: All HM-

AO- Dy.E.O meet in K/E

& H/W wards

Respectively

Feb 6: MCGM announces

EDUCATION BUDGET for

Primary education

Feb 6: Meeting with BCT

to review spoken English

project

Feb 6: IIT training

completed at Ruia

Feb 8:VESIT students

join CLP project with IITB

Feb 8: CACR company

page on LinkedIn

Feb 10: Launch Of First

CACR Newsletter

Feb 10: Sikhsan Divas in

BMC schools

Feb 11:DMC meeting

with ADAPT &CACR

Feb 11: CACR Impact-

DNA reports on No

Signages in MCGM

schools

Feb 16: MUSTRun

Bandra event 400

Municipal school kids

run

Feb 20: CACR Invited to

Discuss: “CSR in

Education-Ensuring

Impact” by Samhita

Feb 22: List of special

school children given to

education department Feb 26th :Flyer’s

distributed in Bandra-

Khar area for CLP

project. Feb 28th : CACR Website

gets NEW sections

Page 2: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

Despite all odds and difficulties the H-WEST Federation,

CACR partners, conduct their Must Run Bandra event.

The event had around 400 BMC school children and

differently –abled participants for a 2 km Run along

with senior citizens.

The BMC School kids from Petit school and Gazar Bandh

School participated and found the event very

entertaining. See the event photos here & Read about it

HERE.

CACR members were invited to attend the discussion on

‘CSR in Education-Ensuring Impact’ by Samhita, an

Infosys initiative. Mr. Mirchandani attended on behalf of

CACR and reported that some of the speakers had

enriching experiences to share and it was a great pool to

brain storm on ideas and solutions.

Previously, CACR members had met DMC Mr.Dhamne

and Mrs.Gargi in connection with relocation

of special children from S.G.Barve Municipal School, Kurla

to a neighborhood municipal school. As per RTE act the

children should attend nearest Municipal school and all

schools should be disabled friendly. CACR along with

members from RC Ruia are trying to relocate special kids

to the nearest school convenient for students. The First

list of students was given to department on Feb 22.

The BIGGEST event for the MCGM Education

Department happened on Feb 6th—if you guessed it was

the BUDGET-- you are 100% on the mark. So what’s the

new figure? More money despite poor unitization? Any

more guesses??? It is a whopping 2660.44 CRORES! For

PRIMARY education in MCGM schools. Yes, almost

equivalent to the GDP of a few European nations put

together. So continuing with an upward trend year after

year with the budget & also continuing the downward

trend with student enrollment. Will this year be any

different? Only time will tell. But I won’t keep you waiting

…The Budget break down is HERE.

1000 CACR handbills on the Computer Literacy Program

have been distributed by newspaper vendors from 16th

Road Khar right up to Pali Hill on Feb 26th and we have

already received a couple of calls from residents

interested in volunteering. Let’s hope these calls

translate into volunteers.

Lastly, CACR website became more informative and

useful for people looking for information on RTE, GR’S,

Circulars, and SMC etc.

We have added a whole NEW Section that contains

documents with information on the above and much

more! Check it out HERE. Scroll down to see the footer

area on our home page.

We also added something for our partners….More in

our ‘What’s NEW’ section of this newsletter.

Well, I sincerely hope you find this edition of the

newsletter much more engaging, candid, and

informative. We hope to improve more next time.

Do write to us about your views and feedback.

Scroll down for stories from our volunteers, partners and

about the Budget.

Thank you for reading.

Dr.Richa Singh

Page 3: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

YOU MUST KNOW

Rupees 2660.44 Crores sounds like a lot of money, isn't it? (4291112000 USD)

That is the budget for the primary education in MCGM public corporation schools, where the number of

students is decreasing and budget seems to pile up each passing year.

MCGM imparts free primary education in eight different mediums in 1150 primary school to 3, 78,627

students which includes 863 students from 17 special schools for mentally challenged students.

MCGM also runs 145 Secondary Schools wherein 54,117 students are imparted free education.

There are 453 MCGM owned School Buildings and 62 rented School Buildings.

As on date there are 11,988 teachers for Primary Schools and 1407 teachers for Secondary Schools.

The Budget Estimate for 2013-14 which was Rs.2472.53 crores has now been revised to Rs.1894.61 crores, which

means….READ MORE

Page 4: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

VOLUNTEER VOICES My first experience BY JZ

A good non-profit is always in search of sincere and dedicated volunteers. Just like any organization is. You put

out the volunteer request through email, social media, handbills, friends, and relatives and then wait for people

to join you for your projects.

People volunteer for various reasons: To give back to society, do good, earn some good karma, certificates,

resume’ building, make some money on the side and some come out to spend their weekends volunteering for

the happiness and joy it brings to be part of a positive change.

Today our Volunteer JZ shares the volunteering experience with us. It is pretty interesting, where it all began and

how it transitioned. Without further ado. Here is the article

“Everyone has thought of a fixed path in life—A good career in a fortune 500 company, money, and an early

retirement to start something new. Volunteering comes into picture only after retirement for most of us.

There is no time for anything else in our busy life. As it is our Social life, traveling, family, Job, keep us

occupied so volunteering is not even part of the equation. Leisure time is spent meeting with friends,

eating and drinking, and shopping. Social responsibility is left to the corporate companies with big

pockets and resources, rights?

This belief changed when I was struggling to get a job. As the famous saying goes “An empty mind is a

devil’s workshop”, I decided to volunteer for namesake, when an old friend told me about some

computer literacy project with IITB.

I had decided in the beginning that if it became too difficult I would give some excuse and leave.

Difficult situations can be handled only in jobs where there is incentive of promotion, money, and

recognition which clearly is not the case with volunteering.

So charged with that notion in mind I went READ MORE

~ The author of the article has earned her Engineering degree and MBA from Mumbai University and still

continues to volunteer on weekends along with her current job.

Page 5: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

PARTNERS SPEAK

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude"- said author, Scoot Hamilton.

CACR and ADAPT together want to sensitize people about disability and make the city more disabled

friendly .CACR has partnered with ADAPT (Abled Disabled All People Together).ADAPT was formerly

known as 'The Spastic Society Of India'.

CACR was instrumental to help ADAPT to plan and initiate the 'sensitization program' for the

Municipal school Principals of Mumbai, India. The CEO and Trustee of ADAPT has written about their

future and current initiatives with CACR.

OVER TO VARSHA

Education and Accessibility

The Right to Education Act (RTE) makes it mandatory for schools to take in children with disabilities. As

a result, the government programmes of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Sarva

Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are now including children with special needs.

There are however challenges, the main one being access. Access does

not pertain only to architectural barriers that prevent persons from

disability from participating in mainstream life. It also refers to access to

education, to the curriculum, to employment.

The Persons with Disability Act mandates that the State create a barrier free

environment for person with disabilities and make special provision of the

integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream.

These include:

1. ramps in public buildings;

2. adaptation of toilets for wheel chair users;

3. braille symbols and auditory signals in elevators or lifts;

4. Ramps in hospitals, primary health centers and other medical care and rehabilitation institutions.

On the other hand, regular teachers and other professionals are not trained in inclusive

education. Since the ‘How’ of inclusion has still not been worked out, teachers find it difficult to deal with

differences in the classroom. The Training and Pedagogy department of ADAPT, set up by Founder

Chairperson, Dr. Mithu Alur in 1978 as there were no trained professionals to teach children with

multiple disabilities, has been conducting training programme in the field of education, disability,

inclusion in education and the community for various stake holders and has trained over two thousand

teachers, Principals, Master Trainers, therapists and parents.

We have trained regular teachers from schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in inclusive education.

Programmes have also been held for the Municipal Corporations of Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai,

Thane, Kalyan, Dombivali and Meera Bhayender.

Page 6: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

We are therefore very happy to partner the H West Federation and the Citizens Association for

Child Rights-CACR to spread awareness about inclusive education and make the H-West Ward

a ‘disabled-friendly ward’.

Future Plans

A half day sensitization programme for the Principals of 1150 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal

Corporation is planned in April 2014. This we hope is the first step to including children with disabilities into

their schools so that the Right to Education can be implemented and no child is left out of school.

Simultaneously, we hope to initiate the campaign for equal access undertaken by The ADAPT Rights Group

(ARG), set up by Malini Chib, Trustee, Acting CEO, disabled advocate and author, ‘One little Finger’

entitled ‘Mumbai Rising for Disability Access: We the People Too’

A group of young persons with READ MORE.

WHAT’S NEW

1. WEBSITE UPDATES:

www.ngocacr.com got 2 NEW sections-ONE for the monthly newsletter HERE &

Other for IMPORTANT GOVT CIRCULARS, ACTS, REPORTS, RTI’S LIST OF SCHOOLS & DISPENSARIES on HOME Page

NEW?

soWHAT'S

Page 7: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

2. OUR Partners get DIRECTLY LINKS embedded in their LOGO Names on our website. So the Visitors visiting CACR website can

have direct access to our Partner’s websites/Face book pages/other Social Media on Click of a button!

3. IITB has made a new introductory video on Basics of computer parts & uses for CLP project. It is available on YOU TUBE HERE

4. CACR Members were invited to Project "READ INDIA" by Rotary Club of Lokhandwala. On 8th February, Rotary Club of

Lokhandwala Kandivali set up a library by donating two book cases and 253 story books to Transit Camp BMC Hindi Shala,

Lokhandwala Township, Kandivali (E).

______________________________________________________________________________________

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Computer literacy project –CLP with IITB completed in Chakala mun. School building in 4 schools.

CLP Handbills to call for volunteers created and rolled out and Distributed via Facebook, LinkedIn and Newspaper vendors

CACR Deeply Thanks Artist ANAGHA NIGWEKAR for creating this

Handbill

EMAIL SENT TO AMC About the neglected conditions & lack of accountability in BALWADI’S

CACR is on Twitter @cacr6 Follow us HERE #World NGOday celebrated across the GLOBE on Feb 27th

Page 8: All the action in Fabulous February: CACR newsletter Feb'14

STAY TUNED FOR MORE NEXT MONTH…..

Enrollment drive handbills under creation for MASS enrolment drive for MCGM schools

Social plays to spread awareness on municipal education planned Content for virtual classroom –exploring options! Got SOME ideas? write to us here Academic year ends in March third week -finish your projects in time! SMC’s to be reelected contact your HM to nominate your name CACR participates in DNA ican women’s run with 70+ BMC school girls

_____________________________________________________________

THAT’S IT FOR NOW

Thank you all for contributing to the Newsletter—Nitin, JZ, and Varsha.

I hope our readers find this edition even better than the last one.

NOTE: All letters in BLUE are hyperlinks which will help you to view the content/photos in detail when

you CLICK on them

**If you think our newsletter shouldn’t be in your inbox. Please CLICK HERE to unsubscribe. **

Have a Fabulous Weekend and Women’s day

Best wishes, Richa Singh [email protected] On behalf of team CACR Citizens Association for Child Rights www.ngocacr.com or www.cacr.in Come Connect with Us! Face book: https://www.facebook.com/CitizensAssociationForChildRights Twitter: @cacr6 LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/citizens-association-for-child-rights/

IN

PIPELINE

THE