Eureka Focus Villages Program
It is very difficult for marginalized communities to break the cycle of poverty. Low income and bad living conditions leads back to poor health and nutrition. An intensive effort on multiple fronts is required to help these communities break this cycle of poverty.
Aid India has identified 250 most marginalized villages, where we will focus all our efforts to create a visible and measurable transformation in the lives of the poorest families.
Eureka Focus Villages: Overview
The programs that will be implemented in the Eureka Focus Villages are:
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Children’s Library: Build reading habit in children
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Walk ‘n’ Talk English: Spoken English program to build confidence
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Science and Tinkering Club: Builds curiosity and confidence to explore
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Evening Learning Center: Ensure every child does well at school
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Early Childhood Education: Basic skills for school-readiness
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Sports and Self-defense for Girls: Build fearlessness and strength
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Children’s Tree Club: Get children to plant trees and take care of them
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Kitchen Garden: Grow vegetables to improve nutrition
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Village EdTech Center: Tech center to support higher order skills
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Homes for the Homeless: Safe and secure living space
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Women’s Bathrooms: To provide privacy and safety
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Community Health: Medical Camps and Preventive Care
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Livelihood: To ensure sustainable growth in family incomes
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Rights and Entitlements: Organize access to govt schemes and rights
Eureka Focus Villages
Book reading and story-telling activities builds reading habit
Role plays are a fun way to get children to read more!
Why
Children from poor families don’t have access to reading materials. Building a reading habit is critical to improving their performance in school.
What we do
Our village libraries with attractive books and a motivated volunteer encourages children to read lots of books. Role-plays and story-telling sessions strengthen and build a reading habit.
How it helps
Children become confident readers and this improves their creativity and expression. This also makes them good at self-learning.
Cost
$ 300 supports the Children’s Library program for one village for a year. This helps 50 children experience the joy of reading and build a reading habit.
Colorful Charts and Audio modules helps children learn English
‘Teaching’ their families to converse in English is the best way for children to learn English!
Why
English is the biggest divide between the rich and the poor. Lack of English skills deprives village children from opportunities.
What we do
Aid India runs Spoken English classes in the focus village using activities, cards, visual charts and audio modules. Spoken language develops only with continuous use. To encourage children to speak in English, after every class, our team takes the children around the community ‘teaching’ their families what they have learnt. English melas are conducted in the village where children perform skits in English in front of the village community.
How it helps
Speaking in English builds the confidence of children and also creates a sense of pride in their parents.
Cost
$ 600 supports the Walk ‘n’ Talk English program for one village for a year. This helps 40 children learn to speak in English with confidence.
Building their own cycle from parts is an amazing confidence booster!
Doing experiments makes science exciting
Why
Children learn best when they see and do activities. Learning by doing really builds their confidence and skills. But most schools teach science without even doing a single experiment.
What we do
Eureka Science and Tinkering club gets children to play with science experiments and discuss science concepts. Tinkering Labs are conducted by local cycle mechanics, plumbers, electricians, mobile repairers who become teachers and impart their amazing practical tech knowledge to these children.
How it helps
Science experiments builds curiosity and makes children excited about learning. Tinkering sessions build the confidence to explore and self-learn. They also build the culture of learning from everyone.
Cost
$ 480 supports the Science and Tinkering Club program for one village for a year. This helps 30 children become hands-on science and tech enthusiasts.
Evening classes at Serrakanur Focus Village
Skill Chart tracks the progress of every child
Games make Math really easy
Why
Most of the children in these communities are unable to even read a sentence or do basic arithmetic operations. This leads to children dropping out of school.
What we do
Everyday, we conduct evening classes using innovative methods, games and materials to ensure children build their language and math skills. Our tutors also help the children prepare for their school exams. Using a skill chart, we track the progress of each child and provide extra support to the children who are lagging behind.
How it helps
Building their language and math skills dramatically improves the child’s confidence and helps the child learn all the other subjects as well. As their exam performance improves, the child’s confidence increases further and she puts in even more effort into learning and all thoughts of dropping out fade away.
Cost
$ 1440 supports daily evening classes for one village for an entire year. This helps 40 children build their language and math skills and dramatically improves their school performance.
Story Telling with Action builds both language and imagination
Building Cognitive Skills through Play
Why
Maximum brain development happens in the 0-6 age. But children from these poor families neither have toys to play with nor get exposure to educational activities. Without educational inputs and stimulus at this age, catching up later gets very difficult.
What we do
Our pre-primary classes (for 3-6 age) with games and activities is designed to improve the brain development in these children. Colorful cards for story telling, songs, counting games, shapes and fine motor games and the fun pedagogy makes the children enjoy coming for these classes everyday. We track progress of the children using the School-Readiness-Indicators Chart.
How it helps
This program builds the language, cognitive, motor and social skills of these children and improves their brain development. This prepares them for school and makes them much more confident learners at school.
Cost
$ 600 supports pre-primary classes for one village for an entire year. This helps in early brain development for 25 children leading to their becoming confidence learners at school.
Yoga and Strength training creates a can-do attitude
Physical Team Sports build confidence, strength and bonding
Why
Girls are discriminated against in many different ways. They taught to be afraid and shy. This leads to low self-esteem and severe under-confidence. The harassment they face when they go out adds to this feeling of being weak and incapable.
What we do
We get girls to form teams and play physical sports like football regularly. Yoga, strength training and self-defense classes builds up their physical and mental strength. Dream Big Classes for these girls will cover 5 themes: ‘Know your body’, ‘I will eat’, ‘Writing my life’, ‘Cyber safety’ and ‘First Aid’.
How it helps
The program builds huge self-confidence in these girls. The team-activities builds up a strong peer support structure for these girls. The Dream Big and the self-defense classes makes these girls fearless.
Cost
$ 600 supports this program for one village for a year. This helps build up the strength and confidence of 20 girls, making them fearless.
Taking care of a plant and seeing it grow into a tree instils a sense of responsibility
Why
Humans have destroyed forests and trees everywhere. Even in villages, most trees have been cut. Children who handle small responsibilities grow up into mature and responsible adults.
What we do
As part of the Tree Club, we get children to plant five trees each (during their birthday and other functions). Just planting is NOT enough. They need to water them daily, protect it from goats and animals and take care of the plant until it grows into a tree. Each tree is named after the child and a card is maintained by the child to track the progress of the tree. Environment classes are also conducted for the children. The children who take good care of their trees are also given certificates.
How it helps
The program increases the number of trees in the village and also instils the sense of responsibility in children.
Cost
$ 180 supports this program for one village for a year. This helps 50 children plant and take care of 250 trees.
Vasavi’s family now eats vegetables everyday. She also earns Rs. 2000 per month by selling the extra vegetables!
Seeing their Kitchen Garden growing is a source of immense satisfaction
Why
Vegetables are costly and so most poor families rarely eat vegetables. This leads to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, particularly in children, adolescent girls and pregnant women.
What we do
We help each family start a kitchen garden near their home by providing seeds, manure and training. We also support them with training on composting and pest management.
How it helps
In most cases, the kitchen garden provides enough vegetables for the family’s daily needs. In some cases, they are even able to sell the extra vegetables and earn a small income.
Cost
$ 300 supports Kitchen Gardens for one village for a year. This helps 50 families produce and consume 5300 kg of vegetables. Market value of these vegetables is ₹ 1.6 Lakhs!
Become Our Volunteer
Focus Village program works with the most marginalized communities to educate children, improve living conditions and most importantly create hope and aspiration for a better future.