EDUCATION..BRINGING MORE SHINE TO LIFE..

From the year 2003 & 2015 onwards M/s. Sunshinekids intl and M/s. Hamburg Sud India Pvt Ltd started supporting the school funding. This support is very crucial since the school does not get government or religious funding for the beneficiaries in the school ie  orphans, street children and children from the nearby slums. It is often observed that the children who seek admission in our School have missed 1) early childhood education 2) stimulation and responsive care of both Father and/or Mother 3) Learning material at home 4) Playing material at home 5) adequate supervision to name a few.

EDUCATION..BRINGING MORE SHINE TO LIFE….

Background

Children who live on the street and in slums are deprived and have no safe access to school system making them vulnerable to substandard living. They fall victim to the survival street system and fruits of education are beyond their reach. When survival is the key word, activities related to it become important than going to school. Thus, a school like St Catherine of Siena for destitute children becomes a change maker for many children. 

Children admitted to our school are the ones who are rejected by many other schools by various reasons ie over age, poverty, behaviour problems and poor families migrating to cities. We admit children irrespective of caste or creed. Parental illiteracy, financial backwardness, malnutrition, sickness etc dominates their daily life, hence the school provides them not only with just free books, bags and uniforms, but also with a wholesome lunch, medical check-ups, sports wears etc., to give them a happy childhood. The school creates an atmosphere for the students to learn or re-learn the concepts while in the long run they are moulded or transformed into better students who can be a part of the nation building process for a glorious tomorrow. 

Though the Right to Education is being implemented under the free and compulsory Education Act, 2009, (RTE) many children still remain out of school system.  The RTE Act translates the constitutional provision under 21-A into an empowering right for the children of India.  The Act provides for the right of children to free and compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education and it seeks to ensure good quality elementary education conforming the standards which is a dream for the less privileged. 

Imparting Improved & Quality Education

The Most Significant Achievement in this academic year (2018-2019) was to achieve the quality in education. Classes were conducted regularly with additional audio/visual inputs to stimulate the cognitive learning and to sustain the learning output among children. In-class experiential and experimental activities are regularly conducted and outdoor activities for real time experience,  adding new learning styles.

Remedial sessions were given for weaker students every day before the school sessions and in evening by interns from St Catherine through ‘After School’ learning program. A stipend is provided for the interns.

Consistent efforts from the vigilant staff reduced the absenteeism of day scholars which helped to bring the performance of students to a standard level. The faculty also kept a track of children who loose textbooks and workbooks.

Children are encouraged with positive responses to their effort and the amount of English spoken in the classroom increased. Classroom management became better: helping to develop students’ skills and confidence and students work independently and can undertake assessment or tests.

Assessment

Assessment became the indicator showing the improvement of children with regular Unit Tests and Middle Of the Year (MOY) & End Of the Year (EOY) Educational Assessments.  Regular Open days were conducted in school and parent got updated about child performance. After the assessment children are grouped for intensive remedial classes which helped children to improve their performance.

Various programs are conducted to showcase the artistic, musical, kinesthetics, inter personal and intra personal skills of children in and out of the class rooms to boost psycho-socio development of children. All children are encouraged to participate in the program. Annual Sports held at St Stanislaus school ground and Annual Sports workshop gave each one--the cheer and joy of sports.  

Meeting Health Challenges

Unexpected health challenges are another deterrent looking for an immediate solution. Prevention and Cure basis medical check-ups are conducted  with regular  follow ups.

Special dental check-ups with follow up also are conducted. Vaccination of Rubella / Measles was given to all students which was conducted by the Education department.

Few students diagnosed with serious illness underwent treatment with school support both financially, emotionally and nutritionally. The following are the problems which children are diagnosed with in the school..

·      Renal,

·      Tuberculosis and Spine Tuberculosis,

·      HIV,

·      Cancer,

·      Ear problems,

·       Heart block

Parent Empowerment Through Monthly Meetings

This aims to get parent involved in child’s learning at school. Most of the parents are illiterate hence stay away from child’s learning in school and even at home. Monthly meeting on the last Thursday, aims to create awareness with the parent about the expectation of school for their child.

Malnutrition, Hygiene, health issues, behavior problems, monitored study at home etc are discussed by the Head Teacher and teachers with the presence of Social Workers and Counselors who conducted 11 monthly meetings in this year.

Teachers were successful to establish WhatsApp contact for parents with voice messages about classroom activities in Hindi and pictures (for those with Android phones). Parent is encouraged to use a cheapest second-hand android phone.  Voice messages helped them to understand better than the written messages since many of them are illiterate. This helped parents to show greater interest in child’s academic performance and improvements.

Many Poor sick parents are supported with doctor support, medicine and nutritional support.   Every week the parents who are sick are checked in the Medical Room by a visiting medical team.   Supporting an ailing parent always gave their children the safe access to school than sitting at home. Parents also received group as well as individual support to meet the expectation of school.

Staff Performance and Welfare

We were fortunate to have our all staff in this year as trained and skilled who loved to teach the children at risk.  It has been always a big challenge to get teachers who love challenges in education.

M/s Hamburg Sud India Pvt Ltd’s support made sure that we recruit the right teachers and also to pay a decent and increased salary to acknowledge additional hours and skills required for working with children at risk with duties developed and listing performance and expectations.  

Teacher training is provided and Teachers were given regular feedback on performance. Workshops were conducted on “How to deal with differentiation in class rooms” & “How to conduct effective remedials”. Weekly Friday meeting was conducted with the headmistress and teachers to address the issues and problems faced in classrooms. This made it easier to deal with difficult situations in a daily class room.

The financial security (through M/s. Sunshinekids intl and  M/s Hamburg Sud India Pvt Ltd support) also provides the Head Teacher much needed  confidence to search for the best teachers so the quality of education is maintained and the children in difficulty feel the education as friendly. Teachers and non teaching staff salaries are paid from the support  to get maximum benefit in child’s learning and personal growth in the context of Right to Education and Girl child’s education. Teachers also are equipped to deal with children coming from difficult cultural, linguistic backgrounds and different learning styles.

Teacher’s day and Women’s Day also were celebrated in the school

Festivals of Harmony

All festivals are celebrated in the school with activities to bring the experience of India in the class room. We strongly promote the brotherhood of humanity (the vision of our Founder) and nurture the qualities to respect  one’s culture, race and faith. Birthday Celebration of founder Late Father Anthony Elenjimittam, Independence Day, Ganesh Utsav, Raksha Bandhan, Bandra Fair, Dusserah, Diwali, Christmas, Republic Day, Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti, Mahashivaratri, Holi, Gudi Padwa, Ram Navami, Mahavir Jayanti, Easter, St Catherine of Siena Feast etc are widely celebrated in the school. A reading club in the library adds to the much-needed information to all these festivals for children and teachers.

 Small Victories for a Bigger Change

• By engaging parent support, it was easy to ensure regular attendance of students. The vigilant staff kept the follow ups regularly and it brought a new behaviour culture in parent and learning culture in student. A big thank you to Hamburg Sud India Pvt Ltd for sponsoring the school from 2015 onwards..

• Providing additional support for weaker students (early in the morning at 8am) and continuing it throughout the year was a big challenge. A great thank you for the head teacher and teachers who came early to the school to bring the smile back on the waiting student.

• Dealing with unexpected casualties with timely support to children with illness and emotional support for them, kept the momentum of life struggles going on with hope and care. Thanks to the social work and counselling team for their wholehearted involvement.

• Health of the children and staff are monitored through the medical section and a big thank you to the team of visiting doctors and support staff from India bull’s foundation and True Love project for medical camp and Angel Dentist Network for Dental Camps and follow ups.

• Nutritional food with a maximum count of 800 plates per day (1,68,000 to 2,13,000 plates in a year) is served in a normal school day. A Big thank you to the kind donors who supported our dedicated office team and kitchen staff.

• The upgraded sanitation infrastructure with brand new toilets and wash areas in the school building made the children to understand the importance of hygiene and being clean in the school.  A Big Thank you to the Merck Foundation and Bayer Life Sciences Pvt Ltd for carrying out the renovation.

The upgraded playground with a multi-tasking colourful slide replaced the old play equipment which were in very bad condition & helping the dream of School re-organisation for better management from 2016 under Sunshine kids intl and Thank you to Sunshine kids intl for making these happen and for supporting the school from 2003 onwards.

Material Provided in 2018-2019

• All children are provided the approved state curriculum textbooks and additional workbooks with an upgraded curriculum. The student engagement in lessons is more.
•  Provided 2 sets of New School uniforms and one school bag and one School shoes to all children.
• All children are provided one morning snack and one wholesome lunch every day in the school, vegetarian or non-vegetarian. One evening snack is provided to children who attend ‘After School’ learning programme.
• Occasionally all children are given hygiene kits and every month a packet of Poshtik Aahar ( a Nutritional supplement)
• The school van facilitated to bring children who are from vicinity.

Way Forward
Having put the spirited efforts to bring ‘demonstrable’ Academic Excellence among children from destitute background, it is vital and important to sustain the educational activities provided to children at St Catherine of Siena School for Destitute Children for the year 2019-2020. So that more children benefit to experience and explore the learning abilities, classroom process and guided molding from the effective and resourceful teachers.

Since the funding for the activities are very important and crucial, a formal request for support be sent to M/s Hamburg Sud India Pvt Ltd., and M/s Sunshinekids intl for the year 2019-2020. With the financial support, we also plan to upgrade the school till the 8^th grade from the current 4^th grade adding a division every year.


We Thank everyone for your care and love, commitment and patience for all of us (children and staff) to grow into better people and good citizens of our Mother Land and helping us with the Nation building task.

The Leader ship for the year have been
Ms. Lizelle Pereira Head Mistress
Mr. HItansu Tandy Senior Social Worker
Ms. Arlene Rego, Counselor
Mr. John Fernandes, Maintenance
Ms. Payal Pamak, Accounts



The Trustees and Managing Committee were
Mr. Siby Xavier, Chairman & Trustee
Brother Joseph Sebastian, Secretary & Trustee
Mr. Charles Dango, Treasurer & Trustee
Sister Dominic, Trustee
Mrs. Patricia Furtado, Trustee
Mrs. Sonal Solanki, Member
Mrs. Marie Abraham, Member
Dr. Allan Saldanha, Member
Mr. Parag Jamsandekar, Advisor

Would you like to help us?

Below are the Bank Details:

For Donors from OUTSIDE INDIA:

Name of Account Holder :  WELFARE  SOCIETY FOR                           DESTITUTE CHILDREN

Name of Bank :     UNION  BANK OF INDIA

Branch :          Bandra Hill Road Branch

Account Number :    S.B A/C :  315602010004927

IFSC CODE :     UBIN0531561

SWIFT CODE  NO :   UBIN IN BB SZW

For Donors WITHIN INDIA:

Name of Account Holder :  WELFARE  SOCIETY FOR DESTITUTE CHILDREN

Name of Bank :  UNION  BANK OF INDIA

Branch :   Bandra Hill Road Branch

Account Number :   315602010018273

IFSC CODE :   UBIN0531561

-Thank You!!!-