Laxminagar Khelghar

Khelghar has provided quality academic and life-skill intervention to the children in the Laxminagar community, Kothrud, Pune for the past 27 years. 

The Community 

At its core, Khelghar runs an after-school educational center in Laxminagar Community. This community is comprised mainly of migrant construction workers and domestic workers. Most of the children (1200 of school-going age, according to our latest survey) here are first-generation school-goers. There are serious issues of health, hygiene, poverty, addictions, unemployment, vandalism, violence, and domestic abuse in the community. 

The Need 

The development of a child is influenced by many factors like the social environment, the sense of security and happiness, appropriate and timely answers to their problems, encouragement to learn, and the loving-caring company of adults. Unfortunately, children residing in the community lack this. It has a direct bearing on their education, mental well-being, and overall development. The school dropout rate is high. Boys are inclined towards hooliganism and addictions, while girls do not get education opportunities. Children are not interested in education as they rarely get positive learning experiences in schools. This further perpetuates the cycle of poverty and related issues. Access to a quality educational environment is a key solution to this problem. Khelghar started working in this community as an academic intervention program for school-going children. We aim to provide joyful learning experiences to children in this community, which will help them pursue education and create a better life for themselves and their families. While working with the children of this community, we developed an educational methodology, which we have seen to work very well for children in disadvantaged communities. Khelghar dreams of a society where children, especially those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, get a caring and enabling environment to learn and blossom.

OurAim 

  • Create opportunities and an environment that helps children from socially disadvantaged communities to realize the joy of learning.
  • Equip children with the life skills and attitudes needed to make a positive change in their lives. 
  • Help build self and social awareness and responsibility in socially disadvantaged children.
  • Provide an educational scaffolding to disadvantaged children to ensure they at least pass their SSC exams and thus improve their chances of a better career. 

Our Values 

· Equality of all human beings, irrespective of their class, caste, gender and age.
· Co-operation, not competition.
· Creating and maintaining a child-centric and child-friendly environment.
· Focusing on self-regulated behaviour rather than incentives and punishments.
· Recognizing the right of children to exercise freedom of choice in learning.

Khelghar CSO Outreach 

With the vision of making our learning available to CSOs working for disadvantaged children, we have authored and published a handbook of the Khelghar methodology, called ‘Anandane Shiknyachya Dishene’ in Marathi, Hindi, and English. It is being widely used by CSOs across India as a pedagogy tool for teachers. With the same vision, we have extensively reached out to and mentored CSOs (127 to date) pan India through our Capacity Building and Outreach program. 

Khelghar’s Parent Organization Palakneeti Pariwar 

‘Palakneeti Pariwar’, founded by Dr. Sanjeevani Kulkarni has been publishing a monthly periodical since 1987 to facilitate parenting and creative education thought processes. Palakneeti has promoted the cause of Social Parenting. We believe that people with more cultural capital should take the responsibility of providing a good educational environment for socially disadvantaged children.

Our Programs

1) Study classes

  • Academic support for Std.1-10 children
  • Basic concepts of language and maths
  • Enable children to achieve SSC

2) CSO Outreach

  • Train CSOs in Kharghar methodology
  • Mentor new organization working in children’s education

3) Youth Group

  • Support for children who have complete schooling
  • Career counseling, financial aid
  • Prevent dropout in college education

4) Life skills

  • Develop communication skills, decision making, problem solving, emotional regulation,

Social skills and adaptability

5) Parents Group

  • Enable attitudinal changes in parenting
  • Increase community participation

खेळघरसंकल्पना – शुभदाजोशी ( विचारवेधमधीलमुलाखत )

Our Achievements 

Impact of Direct Interventions with Children 

  • 200 children experience a joyful learning and education environment at Khelghar every year. 
  • 80% of Khelghar children pursue higher education after 10th standard. 
  • 95% of children who attend regularly stay away from anti-social behaviour, such as fights, crimes, addictions, and hooliganism, 
  • Girls attending Khelghar do not get married before 18 years of age. They continue their education after SSC. They stand against domestic violence and support their family members too. 
  • Parents participate as ‘Khelghar Mitra’ to contribute to the betterment of the social conditions in the community.

Anecdotes- 

“Khelghar has had a great impact on me. I wouldn’t have been able to speak as well if not for Khelghar. More importantly, I wouldn’t have been able to observe my surroundings. I would probably have been like what girls are expected to be here – do household chores and sit at home.”

Payal Khatrawat, Std. 10 Student

“I have been attending Khelghar since std 2. It has been with me at every stage of my life for the past 14 years. I am pursuing my graduation degree now. At Khelghar we talk in such a way that we are dissuaded from pursuing wrong ideals. That is why we haven’t fallen prey to the  addictions that are rampant in the basti.”

– Parshuram Kambale, Youth Group

Drop-out Prevention Impact @ Laxminagar 

 65 children @ Laxminagar brought back to main stream education

The Challenges 

In addition to the issues, we see that there are 

several new challenges in the community about 

the education of children that need to be thought 

about in the coming years. 

· Social media and over-exposure to digital devices, lack of digital literacy. 

· Increasing number of children attending English medium schools and getting disconnected from academics. 

· Disseminating and creating a wider impact of our learnings of 27 years. 

· Mental well-being and behavioural issues in children on the rise.

Looking Ahead 

In addition to the current programs, we have the following initiatives in the pipeline to address the current challenges mentioned earlier. 

1) School Intervention

  • Guidance to school for inquiry based,discovery based,discussion based and analysis based interactive learning methods in foundational Literacy and Numeracy (NEP based)

2) Library initiative

  • Cration of a book resource center in the community
  • Provide free access to books for all people in the community.

3) Kharghar Certification

  •  1 year blended mode course for creating Khelghar certified teachers.
  • Khelghar  Connect forum for sharing reference in teaching

4) Life skills syllabus design

  • Develop modules for primary children
  • Extend life sessions to school children
  • Develop an assessment tool for life skills.

5) Direct Parent Engagement

  • Hire Parents as assistant teachers in Kharghar.
  • Develop book bag program to provide access to book.
The ‘ Discussion group ’ at Khelghar ( खेळघराचा संवादगट )
The ‘ Discussion group ’ at Khelghar
संवाद समूह Sanwad samuh
Khelghar activity ( ‘ खेळघर ’ उपक्रम )
Reading Festival ( वाचनजत्रा )

Khelghar’s Outreach and Student Achievements Educational accomplishments of children who have attended Khelghar regularly 

Education till 10th   -Total –  29, Boys-15, Girls –   14 .

Education till 12th  -Total –  55, Boys-31,  Girl s-  24  .

Diploma pass  – Total –  23, Boys- 18 , Girls-   5 .

Degree pass  – Total –  10, Boys- 7 , Girls –    3.

Currently pursuing higher education -Total – 45, Boys- 21, Girls- 24.

Total youth children till date -Total – 162,  Boys – 92,  Girls – 70   .

Financial Needs 

The financial costs of running a project like Khelghar are considerable. To run the current programs as is, we require a yearly funding of about Rs. 67,00,000/-. This does not include the budgeting requirements for the proposed programs for the next five years. The funds are required for salaries of the staff and mentors, rents of premises, special programs, trips, psychological counselling etc. 

Primary Group 1st to 4th Std –  12,00,000 rupees – 60 number of teachers 

Middle Group 5th to 7th Std – 12,00,000 rupees –  60 number of teachers 

High school Group 8th to 10th std – 15,00,000 rupees – 50 number of teachers 

Post SSC-7,00,000 rupees – 50 number of teachers

Parent’s Project – 2,00,000

Training Programs for Other CSOs -12,00,000  – 30  number of teachers

Administration and program management – 7,00,000/-

*The details of the financial requirements breakdown, and budget for future programs can be shared as required. 

Our Team 

Khelghar was founded by Shubhada Joshi, an architect by profession. Today, it is run by a team of 12 full-time staff members, 5 education expert resource persons, and 10 volunteer members.