Khusi Shishu Project for slum tribal and orphan Children

III. Project description:

a) What is the purpose of the project?
The aim is to offer a high quality education to children and youth, who usually do not have access to scholastic services, through additional tuitions and vocational courses focused on art in order to make the school more attractive for the beneficiaries and to increase their self-confidence and creativity.
b) What will the project achieve?
• 50 students receiving a high quality education and well organized art workshops;
• One meeting on children rights in Odisha, for stimulating the creation of a NGO network and coordinating the individual efforts;
• 50 T-shirts printed with paintings on environmental protection awareness, children rights and Odisha tribal patterns;
• 1 community fund for future medical checkups and treatments, construction of latrines and teacher salary;
• 1 community hall with a small library;
• 50 medical checkups offered and necessary treatment provided to the children;
• Detailed researches on living conditions in Bhubaneswar slums.
c) What changes will be directly attributable to the project activities?
• Growth of educational level and increase of the probability to involve these children in formal schools;
• Learning of artistic skills they could use in future for becoming good entrepreneurs;
• Health control practices: these children have never done a medical checkup so it is really required to know more about the diseases they might suffer;
• The children and youth will increase their self-confidence and they will experience a small scale entrepreneurship becoming change makers;
• Strengthening the collaboration among the slum inhabitants in decision making process in managing the community fund and in building and keeping clean the community hall;
• Raising of environmental protection and child rights awareness, not only among the children and their families, but also among middle and upper class people through the auction of the t-shirt with paintings inspired by these issues.
• To provide a cozy, safe and positive environment where children can express their creativity and have a serene personal growth.
Over what period of time will the project be implemented?
The project will last for 9 months from June 2013 to February 2014.

d) What are the main activities of the project? What actions will be undertaken to gain outputs?
• Morning classes of Odia language, geography, mathematics, English language, science (especially focused on environmental protection) and Computer held by JRP staff, volunteers and the teachers.
• Art workshops and recreational activities in the afternoon held by local artists, JRP’s staff and volunteers to teach the children and the youth, new painting and drawing techniques.
• Meeting with all the other NGOs working on child protection to exchange good practices, speak about how to enforce the children rights and create a network trying to coordinate the individual efforts.
• Organization of the charity auction for raising proceeds for a community fund aimed to respond to community needs.
• Launch of a call for researches made by college students on “To live in a Bhubaneswar slum” with three prizes (5000 Rupees each)
e) Are there any major risks of which you are aware that could affect the successful implementation of the project? How will they be reduced?
The major risk may be obtaining the permissions for the auction but it can be easily reduced contacting the specific department in advance.
f) Other features of the project which you consider important.
We consider really important that:
• Through the creation of t-shirts on environmental protection, child rights and tribal art tradition we want to spread awareness among the children, youth, and the Nilapodia community and, in a wider way, among Bhubaneswar inhabitants through the charity auction.
• We would like also to stimulate the research on the living conditions in Bhubaneswar slums, hence we want to create a call with three prizes (5000 Rupees each) for college students for writing research thesis. The prizes will be given during the charity sale auction and all the researches will be published on JRP web site.
g) Describe any possible environmental impacts or benefits the project might have.
We want to built the community hall with eco-friendly materials and using local resources like bamboo and avoiding excessive use of cement.
A. Origin and Context:
In the last ten years, the city of Bhubaneswar has experienced a huge and uncontrolled growth and immigration flow of people from Odisha’s other districts, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, whose majority are highly indebted and landless farmers looking for an accommodation in the slums which are growing and multiplying day by day. Nilapodia slum is located near Damana Square, and it is mainly populated by tribal families recently emigrated from other areas of Odisha. The inhabitants are mainly exploited daily workers: men and women are engaged in working activities for the entire day so usually they do not have time for looking after their children. Moreover, the hygienic conditions in the slum are very precarious and unsafe. People have access to purified water but lack in services such as latrines, waste collection and community hall where to discuss the community matters. Because of the difficult access to governmental schools and the absence of the parents control, the dropouts rate is very high and during the day the children spend the time playing in open air dump inside the slum, taking bath in polluted ponds or wandering in the surrounding fields uncontrolled by adults. This situation is not very risky only because of the hygienic unsafe environment but also because cases of children kidnapped have recently happened in other slums.
Beneficiaries and Participants:
a) Who will benefit from the project and how will these benefits be realized?
• Direct beneficiaries: 50 children and youth and their families
• Indirect beneficiaries: Nilapodia Slum’s inhabitants
Were the beneficiaries involved in the decision to seek funding and the planning and design of the project? If so, how?
We wanted to involve them in decision making process. In fact, we let children decide their favourite proposal among the ones we advanced. Furthermore, the building of a community hall has been proposed by numerous slum’s inhabitants, because they do not have a place where to gather for discussing important issues affecting the community.