PARENTING
Community involvement is the cornerstone of our program. Our recent efforts have been directed towards training women on sites to assume more responsibility for centres and even run centres themselves. Our work with the community includes:
- Training in childcare: for women from the local community who are interested in taking this up full time.
- Chai pani meetings: Having no pre-set agenda, these meetings offer a chance for the community of construction workers to visit our centre, relax, have a cup of tea, and to talk about whatever is on their minds. In this way we encourage the community to take a degree of ownership over the space.
- Special Interest Meetings: Meetings are regularly held with parents and care-givers from the local community on a variety of issues ranging from child care, hygiene, nutrition, health care, family planning, AIDS, substance abuse, or any other issue that the community or staff identifies as important.
- Street theatre or Lokdoot: We hold regular social gatherings for the local community on festivals and important days and provide them the opportunity to interact in a fun and informal setting. In addition, our staff and students perform street plays and community theatre which address various issues, and have been particularly effective at spreading health messages.
- Open Days: At these parent-teacher meetings, our teachers share children´s progress with their parents and encourage caregivers to discuss their parenting concerns.