Avehi Abacus Project

Location:  Mumbai, Maharashtra

The Project:   Avehi Abacus Project

The NGO:  Avehi Abacus Charitable(Educationa) Trust AP C(E)T

Supporting AID Chapters:

AID Chicago

Amount Funded:

Total funding: ₹330,000 (2015)

Volunteer contact:

Archana Monga, AID Duke; [email protected]

Why?

It all began with an individual’s (Shanta Gandhi, an educator with eclectic interests, and diverse training in science, theatre, dance and politics) passion to develop a children’s curriculum that had relevance to their lives. It evolved naturally through her interaction with a group of children in a small village of south Gujrat, while children asked questions about their surroundings, and the process of finding answers (through games, songs and discussion) led naturally to questions regarding human evolution – how life emerged, why we are what we are, how our lives have changed from the past, and so on.

What?

“AVEHI” means To Know. Since 1990 Avehi Abacus Project of Avehi Public Charitable (Educational) Trust (APC[E]T),  is working onstrengthening the quality and content of education and reaching out to 905 MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Great Mumbai) schools  with 10,000 teachers and more than 2 lakh children mostly belonging to migrant slum community of lower economic strata.

How?

The Avehi Abacus Project has developed three integrated packages of educational materials for students and teachers in the formal as well as the non-formal streams of learning. These are Sangati, Manthan and Saath Saath.

Sangati -Togetherness, Relevance, Harmony

Sangati is a thought-provoking series of six interactive teaching-learning kits that are organized in a way to provide a different perspective for children to understand and analyze the world around them.

These interlinked themes are:

•  Myself, My body, Our needs
• Our earth and the web of life
• How societies developed
• The way we live Understanding change
• Preparing for our future

Saath Saath – living together in harmony

Responding to the increasing awareness about gender parity and ironically, the growing violence against the female sex, the Avehi Abacus Project has developed a kit on Gender titled Saath Saath – Living together in harmony. The kit has been developed to generate respect for individuals irrespective of their biological sex. It aims to create an awareness that requires not just intellectual effort but sensitivity and open-mindedness.

Manthan– Churning

It is a foundation course for pre-service teacher training.

The themes covered in Year One focus on the fundamentals of education. The sessions look at the some of the players in the field of education, their roles and the impact that they have, as well as the ways in which we learn. They go on to explore the history of education in India, and finally discuss Curriculum, Methodology, and Assessment in greater detail.

Based on the fundamentals explored in Year One, the curriculum of Year Two focuses on issues that affect our society. Complex issues such as caste, class, gender, nationalism, and the environment are discussed and deconstructed. The aim is to locate education in the wider context of society, and to examine the role of teachers within the social system.

  For more information about this project please contact Archana; [email protected]

   

 

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