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the issue
INDIA FORGETS her children and the need for quality education for EVERY CHILD, as if we the people in oppressed communities have no tomorrow.
STEREOTYPES rule our minds ... Caste, class, colour, creed, culture. Girls get the worst end of the stick every time.
UNDERSTANDING POVERTY Unless we know the problem, we cannot solve it. But ...
Most of us give in to stereotyped thinking about poverty: Poor people are this and that. Myths that are far, far away from reality! The pity is that India's governments also would like children to remain poor and with illiteracy so the best jobs are not split and shared,
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MOTHERS WANT
Everywhere we go, mothers are not saying children should work. Most of them are saying "Please give our children an education that will take them away from the poverty we have suffered."
UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S PHOBIAS
Can we be whatever we can be, without having to READ OR WRITE? We hear their plea across the country, from every linguistic group, across every chasm.
DISRUPTING POVERTY IN THE CLASSROOMS
As educators and concerned adults, we CAN teach our children how they want to learn! It means a slight change of heart and mind, a staunch unacceptance of stereotypes, and turning a deaf ear to propaganda.
ADIVASI, DALIT & MUSLIM children living in poverty are the most invisible to most governments. Inequalities thrive on age-old debilitating stereotypes.
WE CHOOSE TO IGNORE the fact that 60% of India is south of the South.
Most countries live entrenched in poverty. But no other country has the systemic neglect and downtroddenness that India reserves for her Adivasi and Dalit communities, India's "First Peoples."
UNDERSTANDING CHILD POVERTY
Child poverty is being denied all self-respect and self-esteem. Teachers and society deny girls their education; Dalit kids have to clean toilets before they can enter the classroom; and desks and chairs are, oftentimes, reserved for the so-called "upper castes."
UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S DREAMS
PRACTICALLY EVERY KADL CHILD that we meet wants to be a Reader-Leader. They want to solve community problems. Their mother's chronic cough. The communities water issues.
But they have a strange demand, most of them ...!
KATHA SAYS YES! WE CAN!
Yes, we can teach children to start reading and writing when the joy of exploration impels them to do so. With a storybook rich environment, empathetic teachers who demolish the debilitating stereotypes in their schools, and empowering education, we can make illiteracy in classrooms ABSENT!
AND WE CAN, AS CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY WE LOVE AND CHERISH, WE CAN KEEP OUR FLAG FLYING HIGH -- FOR EVERY CHILD!
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