Excerpts of Report from Ghagra, Paschimpatri Village Unit

LITERACY AND NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

Continuing with its work in the first semester, the group had a new set of students to engage with this time, given that the previous batch had moved on to a different middle school. So once again, the alphabets had to be gone through thoroughly, followed by certain important things such as the ability to tell time, the importance of attending school, general awareness of one’s surroundings, among other things. Also, students were asked to come up and recite certain pieces aloud, as also make certain drawings. Later on, particular stress was laid on Mathematics, given that the students were generally poor in it. Everything from basic counting to addition, subtraction, multiplication and even division were brushed up, with the concept of times tables introduced to the children. They seemed to take a liking to it.

Towards the end, a significant contribution was made to the school by the members of this group – an extensive first aid kit for basic purposes, was granted to the school on behalf of the NSS.  Moreover, the monthly scholarship money for the two deserving students was delivered on time.

YOUTH CLUB

The group took the initiative to conduct a few sessions on basic usage of a computer for the benefit of the youth club members of the villages. They took their laptops over there and gave the introduction to the computer, and also had the youths come forward and use the laptops and become familiar with them.

 CULTURAL PROGRAMME

The group took and active step in forwarding the cultural abilities of the villagers, by often having small competitions amongst the village children, for recital and drawing etc. They collaborated with the Group B towards this end. Moreover, in the latter half of the semester, one of their members, Arijit Patra, took the initiative to start a magazine with the works of the village people, titled ‘Rangamati’. This was printed in good quality and released during the NSS Annual Day Function by the Director of the Institute. 

  

  BEAUTIFICATION

Previously, the temple that had been identified as one which required some maintenance, was

arranged to be whitewashed by the group. They purchased the necessary equipment and oversaw the cleaning and whitewashing of the temple.