Summary

Success of Laxminagar project encouraged us to take up Khelghar Expansion project to extend the same joyful learning experience to many more underprivileged children across larger population. The outcome of the work done in first couple of years at Laxminagar measured in terms of number of children taking interest in learning and gaining confidence made us believe that such a change is possible. To build on this success, we started our efforts to set up a number of new Khelghars across Maharashtra in 2007. 

The Train-the-trainer, methodology emerged out of these efforts.

1. Yearly five days residential workshop 

This is a forum for like-minded people taking interest in fostering joyful learning of underprivileged children. Workshop aims at sharing experiences about joyful learning through actions, expressions and dialogue among participants.

2. Support for New Khelghars

The Khelghar core team works with people interested in setting up new Khelghars for underprivileged children in localities near them.

Khelghar Handbook

In 2015, Khelghar developed a handbook, titled “Aanandane Shikanyachya Dishene”, for the benefit of teachers and volunteers from new Khelghars and contains well documented processes and methods. The handbook is aimed at giving them strength and direction in their endeavor. It is found useful by school teachers as well. Khelghar conducts training programs to familiarize teachers about ways to use this handbook.

3. Special training programs 

a. One day workshops 

Khelghar arranges quarterly 1-day workshops on mathematics, languages, social sciences, positive discipline and responsible parenthood.

Trainings on specific subjects

• Positive discipline & class control
• Communicating with parents 
• Conducting discussion group with children & improving their communication skills
• How to teach fractions/Geometry using activity based learning methods
• Evaluation methods of Khelghar
• How to improve creativity & expression of children
• How to integrate Khelghar methods with school syllabus
• Gender biases

b. Collaboration with Government Schools

Training programs are arranged to help main-stream government schools to adopt creative teaching-learning methods developed by Khelghar.

Khelghar Methodology Training Course -2007 to 2018 (Maharashtra)-

28 Organization, 600 Participants

Wipro Partner workshop 2021-2024 (Pan India)- 

57 Organization, 132 Participants

Organizational Close Mentoring–

13 Organization ,290 Participants

Language & Mathematics Training–

9 Organization,28 Participants 

Life skills Training (Positive discipline, Parenting, Social sciences, Communication)-17 Organization, 510 Participants

Other Trainings – 

3 Organization, 300 Participants

Total-124 Organization,1860 Participants

Details of the project – Strengthening organizations using Khelghar Methodologies

Background

In 1996, Khelghar project started with creative education of 3^rd and 4^thstd.children. Slowly the work has been expanded as to accommodate children from 1^st to 10^thstd. Currently about 200 children attend Khelghar.  We particularly work on realization of joy of learning, development of capacities, awareness building and social awareness. We also work on clarifying major academic concepts with informal methods of teaching. Here emphasis is to work more on aspects like creativity, self-thinking, observation etc. which are usually not focused in schools where negativity seeps in like competition, disinterest in ‘learning’, etc. Till date about 150  children have grown up with Khelghar and standing ably and confidently on their feet. They are not only earning well and supporting their families but also have become gentle & sensible human beings. Khelghar is mainly working on scientific, activity based and remedial teaching methods. It has well tested these methods and created its own methodology. It should be noted that RTE is also proposing similar methods of teaching and evaluation. Khelghar has also developed a scientific evaluation system for the children in Laxminagar Basti as well as with the children in other Khelghars working under the guidance of Palalkneeti Khelghar. The analysis generated in last 6 years has helped us to plan and to set the future directions for our Khelghar as well as for other Khelghars.

Strengths of Khelghar

• Khelghar has over 25 years of experience of handling the children (age 6 to 16 years) from deprived area. 
• Khelghar has designed a system for measuring improvements in children for skills related to language, mathematics and life skills 
• Khelghar has been following ‘Do and Discover’ method for teaching Mathematics 
• Khelghar has developed special teaching module for language, under guidance of experts and has got noticeable results
• Khelghar has a unique activity called as ‘Khelghar’ which is based on integrated exploration of any topic with the help of ‘Games, Art and dialogue’, (Khel, Kala, Samvad). 
• ‘Discussion group’ is a major feature of Khelghar which helps in building leadership, confidence, teamwork, communication skills etc.
• Khelghar has an expertise in Positive discipline and class control methods (generic as well as specially designed for deprived children)

Building on our work and the positive impact on the children of Khelghar at Laxminagar, we thought of systematically sharing this expertise with more and more interested people so that more children will be benefitted. Therefore from 2008 we started conducting 5 days workshop on Khelghar methodology. The training was well received by people. 

Capacity building strengths of Khelghar

• 16 years of experience in training on Khelghar methodology
•  A strong team of 8 people who are expert in conducting trainings on life skills, language, creativity, mathematics, evaluation, positive discipline, health etc. The team has experience in using these methods with children. A pool of 8-10 additional resources is readily available for training. They are associated with Khelghar activities for last 3-4 years
• Training is always a good mix of theory, hands on activities and games. It is always participatory. People have space to express their thoughts and viewpoints. Our training is always an enjoyable experience for all participants
• All methods & views advocated in training are based on our extensive experience & are time tested
• Over 10 years, we are conducting 5 day long workshop to teach our methodology. About 2000 people have attended this workshop. Through this initiative 10 Khelghars have been started across Maharashtra. Through these Khelghars, we have reached around 5000 deprived children
• Through our experience, we have developed a book on Khelghar methodology, ‘Anandane Shikanyachya Dishene’.  It  is quite handy material while using these methods with children
• Our focus is never on academic subjects but on overall development of child. It is always focused on providing conceptual clarity & experiential leaning. 

3. About the Proposed Offering

3.1 Rationale

Building on our work and the positive impact on the children of Khelghar at Laxminagar, we thought of systematically sharing this expertise with more and more interested people so that more children will be benefitted. Therefore from 2008 we started conducting 5 days workshop on Khelghar methodology. The training was well received by people. This project of, ‘Navi Khelghare suru kartana’ was sponsored by Tata Trusts. The response was quite encouraging and since then we are having such workshop every year. We are also assisting interested organizations to set up Khelghars to start such initiative in their area. Through this initiative, many such Khelghars have already started and are already established and some organizations have started Khelghar like initiative at multiple locations

3.2 Objectives

• To strengthen Khelghar like community centers  
• Training of Khelghar methodology for likeminded interested people working with underprivileged children.  

4. Description

4.2 Modules

Outline (high level) of modules being covered 

• Introduction of Khelghar, Concept of Khelghar
• How do we learn?
• Khelghar’s medium of teaching – Games, creativity (arts) and communication
• Hands on experience of different activities/tools which can be used with children
• Positive discipline and class control
• How to develop language skills
• Demonstration of Activity based teaching with academic syllabus/lessons
• How do we teach mathematical concepts using objects
• Integration of methods to have total experience of learning
• How to develop creativity, expression & consciousness of children

Evaluation of children

5. Detailed Information 

5.1 Structure / modules (objectives, content, duration etc.)

The workshop consists of 9 sessions of 4 hours. Trainers are our Khelghar employees and volunteers. We also invite eminent subject experts for 1 or 2 sessions.   Each workshop has different activities and experiences. The sessions are interactive and full of activities. People really enjoy every session and look forward for new experiences they receive in it. Since it is a residential program, lot of sharing happens and a great bond is built between participants too. All the participants are motivated and excited at the end of workshop. Their response always is overwhelming which provides a great inspiration for us to innovate new ideas every time.

Tentative Schedule of workshop is as given below –

• Introduction of participants and khelghar team “khelghar “activity to introduce khelghar brief khelghar history, how do we learn.
• -Mediums of khelghar -Khel kala Samvat life skills Development of Children 
• Developing language skills hands on Experience of language activities
• Developing mathematical skills hands-on Experience of Math thetical activities 
• session on either evolution/health/ parenting/closure/feedback

The cost for such program is approximately Rs. 10,000/- per person. This includes training, food and lodging cost. It may vary little bit every year depending upon the venue and prevailing food and lodging costs. (This does not include Travel expenses of participants)

Three days’ follow up workshop on Khelghar Methodology

Usually after 6 months of initial workshop, we plan to have 3 days follow up workshop for same participants. Here we work on strengthening and elaborating on major concepts. This is a platform to resolve difficulties of people while implementing the ideas learnt during first workshop. We usually cover topics which are not addressed in first workshop like communication with parents

• feedback on khelghar methods implementation sharing projects implemented by the participants ushing khelghar methods.
• Strengthening concepts pf Positive discipline and communication
•  Detailed language teaching methodologies activities about language teaching Evaluation methods
• Detailed maths teaching methodologies Activities about maths teaching Feedback and   review

2. Strengthening Community Centers

We wish to continue with our efforts in future so that more and more organizations are inspired to understand and work upon the Khelghar methodology. Many times, people start such initiative but due to some hurdles, initiative does not continue. Therefore, to sustain such initiative continuous handholding with every organization is required at list for 2 to 3 years. . 

We wish to conduct different types of trainings with co-ordinators and teachers. The aim of such trainings is to make teachers confident in using our methods while teaching children so that children will enjoy process of learning. Four types of interactions are usually undertaken with them. We have MOU to define interaction plan and cost of Khelghar interventions. Usually, our interaction is suggested to continue for three years to make the organization fully equipped to run their center using Khelghar methodology.

3.Visit to Community Center 

Initial visit to community center is quite important to understand the program run by that organization. The visit helps in understanding environment and challenges faced by that organization. Rural and urban setup has different kind of hurdles. Depending upon the needs of the organization, program can be tailored to suit their needs

4. Onsite Trainings 

It has been observed that, many teachers cannot attend workshops conducted by  Khelghar in Pune. Therefore, it is very essential to have trainings at their Khelghar locations itself. 

Two types of trainings which will be conducted at their premises –

1. Demonstrations of Khelghar Methods at their Khelghar site

Our Khelghar trainers will visit one or two Khelghar locations at least twice a year. The activity will be conducted with children at that location. This will be helpful for us also to understand ground reality at each location and problems faced by teachers.

2. Observation of the sessions conducted by teachers.

Our Khelghar trainers will observe the sessions conducted by the new Khelghar teachers and then discuss on it and will also do training of the weak areas. This helps us to understand the training needs in detail.

Applying above training strategies, we wish to achieve following –

• Every teacher should get at least 8-10 days training per year
• Khelghar tais should visit the project location once/twice a year and conduct demonstration classes
• Special trainings for co-odinators so that they can guide teachers
• At least 60% teachers and all co-ordinators should visit Khelghar once a year

Coordinators should motivate teachers to attend our 5 days and 3 days’ workshop.

Khelghar Fellowship

The people need to experience themselves the informal teaching methods; we provide fellow-ship/onsite training opportunity. We usually suggest one/two such trainings per year. The duration is normally a week. Depending upon the profile of teachers and overall training requirements, the training is designed. The training sessions include activities related to teaching Maths, Language and life skills.. There are activities like games, arts, origami, communication with parents etc. The contents will be discussed in detail with co-ordinator and then finalized. Here people get an opportunity to watch our main Khelghar activities, study and prepare educational material, know our library activities etc. 

Online Interactions on Web

Due to Corona Pandemic, people are now conversant with web platforms. We can have review and planning sessions on web. Some small need-based training of short durations or 1-2 hours can also be planned using zoom or Google meet. This platform will help to have more ongoing interactions. Subscription of Zoom connection will be useful for this. 

We propose to have such close interaction with 2 organizations across India, one preferably from Maharashtra. 

Impact of our Outreach Programs 

• Over 1800 teachers and facilitators across India trained for the Khelghar methodology since 2007. The approach has been extended to thousands of children through them. 
• To date, we have mentored 127 organizations across India to set up joyful learning centres for deprived children. 
• Publishing of a 400-page handbook outlining Khelghar’s practices and methodology, currently in its third edition. 

5.5 Profiles of Facilitators