Changing Children's Mindsets with LEADer Priyanka S

LEADer Priyanka S from Rajkiye Mahila Mahavidalaya College, Varanasi, always considered herself a simple girl, but through her projects in LEAD, is now proud to be a leader. This transformation started from her very first project in LEAD, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

Priyanka with some of the children at a session

Priyanka noticed that many of the children in her community lacked the basic knowledge, common sense, and morals that were expected of children when she grew up. Instead of sitting idley by, Priyanka took the LEAD slogan to heart: “Complaints start with they… solutions start with I”.

Priyanka contacted all the families in her community, and ended up gathering over 80 students for several educational sessions over the period of one month. At these sessions, Priyanka focused on teaching the basic knowledge and morality through games, and also incorporated her love and gift for dance, singing, and painting to the sessions. It was a rousing success, with the students truly enjoying their time and Priyanka noticing a changing mindset in the young children in her community after the sessions.

While it was a major challenge to convince the parents to bring their children to the sessions, Priyanka’s drive to change the local children helped her push through. In the end, her passion to change the children for the better is something she had in common with the parents, and this why she thinks she succeeded is getting so many children to be a part of her project.

Some of the children dancing

Education for Prisoner's Children with LEADer Anand K

Anand preparing to enter the prison
with school supplies for the children

LEADer Anand K from BHU has a project that is tackling an issue many of us do not think about: children living in prisons. Along with his brother, fellow LEAD student Shrikant, “Little Krishna” began in order to help these neglected children escape the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and criminal behaviour. Anand was worried about how if children of the prisoners were not being educated, they would not help India move forward and would likely become criminals themselves.

The first major success of the project came when they were given permission to run their education program in one of the prisons near Varanasi. Prior to their project, no NGO or organizations had been given permission to work in the prison, so this was a huge accomplishment.

First, Anand and Shrikant identified the educated prisoners in the jail to find out who may be able to teach the children on a regular basis. After this, they led a session for the children, parents of children, and the educated prisoners, distributing school supplies and telling about the importance of these children being educated. So far, 3 sessions have been held in the jail, and 2 similar sessions elsewhere: 1 in the slum area, and 1 at the brick-making facility.

Session with slum children

Anand found that a serious challenge was that many parents did not want their children educated, because then they are unable to make money for their imprisoned parents. However, this project aims to appeal to their love for their children, encouraging them to understand that education will make a better life for their child later on.

During this project, Anand learned important skills such as how to speak to authority figures and how to motivate. Currently a BA student, Anand hopes to eventually get a job in social work, and believes this project has contributed to him finding this passion and building skills he will need in the future.

Creating Scientific Curiousity with LEADer Prajwal M

"Science is all about understanding the workings of Mother Nature. Every second, nature has something new to show. We can learn many facts and figures about science from library or from google. But the real learning of science comes from by doing things practically. Practically means you don’t need a big laboratory! What you need is good observation skills and a curious mind. The rocket fuel of science is curiosity." - Prajwal M

This curiousity about science is the reason why LEADer Prajwal M's, from NIE First Grade College, Mysore, created his project Vigyan Santhe, a bi-lingual (Kannada/English) science website and app for school children. He wanted to show science in a new and fun way. "Vigyan" means science and "Santhe" is the Kannada word for the weekly fair, and Prajwal wanted the same excitement and curiousity about science as there is about the santhe. 

Vigyan Santhe website

The website is "by the students, for the students, to the students", and also includes a "Student Santhe" section where students can submit their own content. This encourages participation and is an exciting moment for any student to be featured online.

For Prajwal, it wasn't just important for the Vigyan Santhe to teach science. The website also helps to teach computer and internet skills to children, as they learn to navigate and use the website and app. The website is also used as an English teaching tool, whereby students are involved in translating content between Kannada and English. In fact, Hebbal Government School students are actively and regularly involved in translating the English website pages into their native Kannada.

Vigyan Santhe app

So far, the Vigyan Santhe website has over 30,000 visitors and averages 150 visits a day. Three workshops reaching over 200 students in the Mysore region have been conducted to introduce the students to Vigyan Santhe and encourage students and teachers to continue using the website and app.

For Prajwal, his Vigyan Santhe project has helped him both learn HTML coding and improve his English writing skills. He has also realized that simple science can often impact students easier than big and complicated science.

In the future, Prajwal hopes to makes Vigyan Santhe accessible to students with different needs, including the differently-abled, and create an audio library of their articles so that students who struggle to read or are blind can listen to the articles. He also plans to create a mobile library of science-related books as well as science toy printables which students can download on the website, print, and then build like origami.