NAWNIHAAL CHATHAAL

BERCY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

INITIATIVE

Nawnihaal Chathaal is a community based Early Childhood

Education(ECE) center at Ratnipora Village in Kakapora Block of
Pulwama District.

It was inaugurated on February 14 th, 2014

Nawnihaal Chathaal is established under the Block Employment

and Resource Center for Youth (BERCY) , a pilot of Ministry of Rural
Development, initiated in April 2013.

The center caters to educational needs of children from poor

families, between 3-4 years of age who cannot afford private
kindergartens or pre schools.

ECE center was a felt need of the community during

the initial community needs survey done in May 2013 .
Existing Anganwadis are unable to provide good
quality early education to the community children
Children from poor families do not have access to
private kindergartens and play schools
Poor parents are in labor intensive occupations like
carpentry, cooking and masonry work and are unable
to provide much educational support during early
years
Children from poor families miss out on learning in
early years and the gap widens once they enter the
formal primary education
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NUMBER OF BATCHES OF
STUDENTS
TOTAL NUMBER OF STUDENTS
AT THE CENTER
NUMBER OF FACILITATORS AT
THE CENTER

2
32

AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME

OF THE PARENTS

Rs. 3513

OCCUPATIONS OF PARENTS OF
ENROLLED STUDENTS

LABOURERS, COOK,
BREADMAKERS, SHOPKEEPERS

To provide joyful learning to children in their

early years and encourage all round
development

To involve parents and larger community in

management and expansion of the program

To prepare a field level research based model of

ECE curriculum and teaching , parenting
education and community involvement which
can be adopted in state level programs like
UMEED and ICDS
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STAGE 1
NEEDS AND FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENT

NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY IN MAY 2013

From data gathered in door to door survey, 89 children from
Ratnipora -a between ages 3-5 years were not attending any ECE
program
PILOT ON ECE BETWEEN OCTOBER- NOVEMBER 2013
BERCY started a pilot ECE batch with 22 children between ages 3-5
in October 2013
Children from both BPL and non BPL families were enrolled
A BERCY trainer with prior ECE teaching experience was acting as
facilitator
Mothers of children volunteered as helpers for the center on a
weekly basis
Basic counting and alphabets were taught to students through
songs and rhymes
Local government school teachers were involved in activities of the
center
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KEY LEARNINGS FROM THE PILOT

High demand for ECE programs for children
from poor families, better attendance of
children from BPL families
Mothers involvement is key
Children learn best through activity based
methods
Curriculum should be contextualized in local
language and village life for ease in learning

STAGE 2
CURRICLUM DEVELOPMENT AND FACILITATOR
TRAINING

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Learnings from the pilot batch and

interactions with mothers of young children,
Anganwadi workers and local government
school
teachers
helped
in
designing
Nawnihaal Chathaal curriculum

BERCY team studied the existing state school

curriculum under SSA, practices in private
play schools, best practices of organizations
like Center for Development and Research,
Andhra Pradesh and Teach for India in ECE
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A core group comprising of local teachers,

2 mothers and 2 community volunteers
developed a compendium of Urdu and
Kashmiri songs and activities to teach
alphabet , counting , moral values and
familiarity with village life

All these resources have been developed

into video modules for scaling up of ECE
initiative in future
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STRUCTURE OF NAWNIHAAL CHATHAAL CURRICULUM

10 month long activity based curriculum
Children will be taught Urdu, English Alphabet and
concept of numbers(1-20) in 10 months
Focus on identification, comparison, reading and
writing
No use of pen/ pencil or paper, writing is done
through items like water, chalk and stones
Lesson plans and learning goals are set for each
month keeping in view the class progress and
factors like weather, holidays and festivals
Teaching learning material is prepared by
facilitators themselves
13

SELECTION OF FACILITATORS
The 3 facilitators for this program are

from the same gram panchayat

They were part of the core group which
developed the curriculum for the program
and was involved in initial field work
They were selected based on their
contribution as core group, fluency in
local language and sensitivity towards
the needs of the community
All facilitators have attained at least a
high school diploma
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 TRAINING

OF FACILITATORS

Facilitators have been provided 3-day foundation

training from NRLM team in Nawnihaal Chathaal

mission vision, activity based teaching methods,
conducting themselves in classrooms, center
management and
engaging with parents and
larger community
Daily support is provided by BERCY resource
person who have experience in training
In addition to foundation training, every month a 2
day curriculum workshop is done when the next
months syllabus is discussed and mock practice is
done by teachers before finalizing it
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STAGE 3
IDENTIFICATION OF BENEFICIARY

16

3- step process was followed to identify children from

poorest of poor families
6 Mohalla level awareness meetings were done to
increase awareness about the Nawnihaal Chathaal
program
Registration and form filling sessions were held over 2
days at the BERCY center and responsibilities of parents
and BERCY center in the ECE initiative were discussed
with each interested parent. 45 children from BPL families
registered
Home visits were undertaken by ECE facilitators to
identify poorest of poor households based on per capita
income, living conditions and family assets. 35 families
were found to be most deserving
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STAGE 4
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAM

18

CENTER LOCATION
BERCY center with the help of the Block Development
Office established 2 ECE classrooms in the nearby Rural
Information Center building which was not being used
Repairs and renovations of the facilities were completed
before inauguration day
BUDGET FOR THE PROGRAM
The budget for setting up the ECE center was prepared
by BERCY team and items were procured in accordance
with procurement norms of JKEDI.
The annual costs including facilitators salary, monthly
expenses
and miscellaneous costs have also been
approved in advance

19

CENTER SET UP
The physical setup of Center is very friendly, walls
of the room are decorated with colorful learning
charts , mostly prepared by the facilitators.
Different walls are for different subjects. Each class
has a separate Urdu, English and counting wall
INAUGURATION DAY
BERCY team invited all parents of enrolled children
on inauguration day. The center was inaugurated
on February 14th, 2014. Local school principals and
Anganwadi
supervisor,
important
community
members like Sarpanch and Awkaf body members
attended the inauguration
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STAGE 5
OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT

21

Nawnihaal Chathaal offers a five day per week program

from Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.

Each facilitator always follows these basic rules while

teaching
Always make children stand or sit in a circle so that every
child is involved
At one given time, one facilitator should teach and the
other should maintain the children
Give each child equal attention, make everyone
participate
Energize your sessions by playing drums and making
children clap their hands periodically
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RESPONSIBILITIES OF FACILITATORS
To reach Nawnihaal Chtahaal half an hour before
students and ensure each student leaves for home
safely with an appointed guardian
If a child does not come to class continuously for 3 days
then facilitator should do a home visit to understand
what the problem is and to make parents understand
that it is important that a child attends classes on a daily
level.
Do a monthly check of height and weight of the students
Facilitators maintain records like attendance and home
visit register, inventory record and visitor register
On Saturdays , facilitators work on TLM for next month ,
undertake home visits and complete any other pending
work
23

RESPONSIBILITIES OF PARENTS
To drop and pick up their child on time
To give them packed lunch in the morning, parents
should not bring lunch during lunch time to the
center
To attend all meetings and workshops organized by
the Nawnihaal Chathaal center
If a child is absent from class, parents should
inform their facilitator in the morning itself
Proper drinking water facilities and toilets are
maintained. One of the mothers works as helper to
clean the center on daily basis. BERCY provides Rs.
1000 as honorarium
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MONITORING OF ECE CENTER ACTIVITES

MONTHLY MEETINGS WITH PARENTS: Monthly review
meetings are held at Nawnihaal Chathaal every last
Saturday of the month where children present their
learning's for the month in front of their parents. Feedback
is taken from their parents and incorporated into the
program
SUPPORTIVE MONITORING OF FACILITATORS ON A DAILY
BASIS: BERCY resource persons and trainers do daily
visits to the ECE center and closely monitor work of the
trainers and also provide assistance to them in their
activities.
REVIEW OF TRAINERS WORK: Monthly review of trainers is
done on basis of class attendance , quality of TLM and
class observations of BERCY and NRLM team
25

MOTHERS EMOWERMENT AND CHILD

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

26

Since a mother is the primary care giver and plays a very

important role in the development of a child, BERCY Centre
has started a MOTHER EMPOWERMENT AND CHILD
DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM for women whose children are
enrolled at Nawnihaal Chathaal.

This is a parenting education program through which

BERCY provides the space to community women to discuss
important child development issues like health, hygiene,
nutrition and milestones development. This also provides a
platform to discuss myths and age old practices of child
rearing.

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KEY FEATURES OF THIS PROGRAM ARE :

This program
will be offered through role plays and group
discussions
A local expert like a doctor or a teacher will be invited to every
session to increase community trust and have a open conversation
The first phase of this program will be completed in 5 sessions .
Each session will be of 2 hours. The program sessions will be held
on alternate Saturdays from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at the BERCY
Center
The first phase of the program will cover the following topics
Growth and Milestones
Nutrition for young children
Health and Hygiene issues
Till date two sessions , one each on nutrion and hygeine have been
completed
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KEY LEARNINGS AND PLANS AHEAD

29

Community has been very responsive and supportive for

this program. Requests have come from surrounding gram
panchayats to start similar initiative
Mothers involvement with the empowerment program and
in parent teacher meetings is key in child retention and
attendance at the center
Children enrolled at the center are developing on a daily
basis and their association with the facilitators is very deep
During the height weight check and also in discussion with
mothers during the empowerment session on nutrition it
has been observed that many children have not attained
their ideal levels ( 20 of 29 students are below their ideal
height weight levels as suggested by WHO). These
children are from very poor families and their families are
unable to afford supplementary nutrition.
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SUPPLEMENTARY NUTRITION PROGRAM: This will be

started in April. The program will be supported by
mothers who will take care of cooking and related
tasks. A roster of weekly duties will be made and 3
mothers will be responsible for managing this activity
each week.
MONTHLY HEALTH MONITORING: Regular health
checkups will be held every month for continuous
healthy overall development of children
INTRODUCE SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING
OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS: This is required to test
the effectiveness of our curriculum and methods as
much as the learning levels of students
INTRODUCE A FATHERS INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM
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 CREATE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

PRODUCTSas resource for spreading this

initiative in other blocks under UMEED
GREATER COMMUNITY INVOVEMENT
CONVERGENCE WITH ICDS SYSTEM

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