CHILDREN

Can you drop an egg three storeys down without breaking it? Eager young children from schools across the Chennai grappled with this challenge as part of a science camp where they were provided a simple kit with which they could use the elements present to prevent the egg from breaking. Twelve-year old Aniket Tadepalli fashioned a contraption out of cardboard that managed to keep the egg intact. “The egg drop challenge is one of the many activities that we have done as part of camps. It was very exciting because we were not provided any instructions. We had to figure…

"I was nine when the Naxalites killed my father. I love libraries. I want to be a doctor." These were three hard facts of her life that 15-year-old Sumanwati declared in an excited rush of words when we spoke to her. Piecing Sumanwati's confused sentences together builds up a narrative that reflects the lives of almost all students in Education City at Jawanga, Chattisgarh. Sumanwati was nine when she lost her father and was enrolled into Aastha Vidya Mandir, a school for children who have lost either or both parents to Naxalite attacks.  Over the years, she picked herself up, immersed herself…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship It is an 8th grade science class. Students are learning the concepts of Force and Pressure. The lesson starts off with activities, involving them in a game —a tug of war or arm wrestling each other. Throughout the lesson, there are several images and videos that demonstrate the concepts. Their homework for the day is to help at home in preparing rotis, which would involve activities such as separating the hardened dough, rolling it etc — all connected to the concepts that they had studied earlier that day. This is…

A recent survey by the Information and Resource Center for Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC) has shed light on the precarious living conditions and lack of access to basic services by a majority of homeless children in the city. The city's homeless have long been relegated to the fringes and left to fend for themselves. Efforts to increase the number of night shelters and other services available to them has moved at glacial pace. Understanding the services available and availed by the urban homeless, especially children, becomes vital to improve facilities and service delivery. The IRCDUC survey examined eleven parameters including…

Reports from a surveillance mechanism of the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Government of India as well as World Health Organisation surveillance reports from Uttar Pradesh showed signs of the type-2 polio virus in stool samples of some children, following which the samples of Oral Polio Vaccines administered to children were sent for testing. This has set off a chain reaction of events, triggering a heated controversy in the realm of public health in India. The test reports confirmed that some batches were contaminated with type 2 polio virus, the manufacturing, distribution and use of which was stopped…

15-year-old C Aarthi (name changed) is known as a brave and straightforward girl in Kannagi Nagar of Chennai. Her constant smile speaks of a cordial and open personality. But, ask her about the problems in notorious Kannagi Nagar where instances of prostitution and child marriages are common, and she keeps mum. However, two postgraduate students of the Social Work (aided) Department at Madras Christian College took a different route. B Swetha and C Sowmiya, who were placed in the Centre for Women’s Development and Research, tried a creative approach: Art therapy. Girl children from Kannagi Nagar between eight and 15…

42 km on average, a commute of 2 hours, and three buses. This is what a majority of children from the resettlement colonies in Chennai have to navigate to reach their schools. Everyday is a struggle, as they commute in overcrowded buses, where they are often barely able to get a foot on the footboard. It has been close to two years since 6310 families from 28 settlements alongside Cooum River were relocated to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) houses in Gudapakkam (Thiruvallur district), All India Radio (Chennai) Navalur and Perumbakkam in Kancheepuram district. But their lives are yet…

What started off as a holiday in the Andamans for educators Supriya Singh and Katarina Roncevic, has turned into a two-country project to train teachers, students and parents on global sustainability goals. Using their expertise in “education for sustainable development”, Singh and Roncevic’s project The Turquoise Change is using education to tackle environmental problems on the islands of Havelock in India (Andaman and Nicobar Islands) and Zanzibar in Tanzania. Like the Turquoise Change, there is a growing crop of environmental educators who have traversed the world of environmental activism, policy and new technology and eventually found their calling in education. More specifically,…

Narrow, crumbling roads, buildings on either side, cars and pedestrians navigating the maze. I glance at the navigation app on my phone. Less than 100 metres now. But it’s still nowhere in sight. Asking people doesn't help. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a sharp turn. The GPS says I’ve arrived: I'm inside the congested urban village of Panchsheel Vihar, in front of Ramditti J R Narang Deepalaya Learning Centre. The Narang Trust formed by the family-owned Narang Steel, has donated the use of their building to Deepalaya—an NGO—rent-free, for close to forty years. It is within this building that…

It has been close to a month since R Gopinath, a Class 8 student from the Corporation Higher Secondary School in Koyambedu returned from Washington D.C. but his face brightens up still as he speaks of his experience. Gopinath was one of the students selected by the Rotary Club, with which the US Consulate had tied up for this initiative, a branch of their two-year English Access Microscholarship programme. Eight students from Chennai’s Corporation schools were chosen for a trip to Washington D.C., based on an evaluation of their creativity and logical reasoning skills. Before taking the trip, the students…