Engagement with Children
Looking at the situation, we decided to first understand the needs of children we were working with - the needs of their immediate family, how or whether they were affected in any way by the migrant crisis, did the lockdown lead to an immediate loss of livelihood for their family, has anyone in the family been affected by the disease, etc. If digital learning was to be explored, how many of them had access to android devices, and more importantly, who was in possession of that device, and whether he/she was inclined to share it with children to meet their learning needs? The responses to all these queries came in predictable lines, and we decided to adapt a nuanced approach. Not a blanket ban on digital devices, and neither to rely solely on them. This hybrid approach, we found, was very effective. Using the digital medium to disseminate learning resources was possible up to a point i.e. mainly to reach out to the frontline workers – the NGO volunteers, the anganwadi workers and to some extent to households having access to some kind of android devices; but beyond that point, it was human contact that was needed to reach out to the last mile children. In every project, it was left to the frontline workers to reach out to children – visiting homes, maintaining social distance norms or making phone calls to guide the parents. When this was not possible, phone calls for having informal conversations with a child / and her parent on a one on one basis was also quite effective. For young children from 3 to 6 years of age it was parents that we reached out to, giving them guidance on how to engage with their children meaningfully through play activities to offer children opportunities to explore their surroundings in a structured manner. A healthy parent-child interaction is at the foundation of a child’s well-being and development and we found that the small structure that we introduced brought about a visible change in households - a positive effect on their mental well-being of both children and other members of the family. For primary age children, we reached out through our education volunteers, offering them a basket of interesting activities, some worksheets to brush up their skills in language and maths along with stories, songs and ideas on interesting art and craft activities. Our volunteers either use the dry food distribution day in schools to talk to parents or went to their homes to talk to parents and children together, guiding them about what to do.
Here is a glimpse -