Page 57 - Education World July 2020

After imposition of the nation-
wide lockdown on March 25, Katha’s
120-strong team has continued its
work of educating slum children by
swiftly switching to online learning
through apps such as Zoom, Skype
and other video and audio platforms.
“Since the lockdown, all our employ-
ees are working hard to keep our
50,000 children interested and in-
volved in learning. Katha’s community
development model is based on child
welfare, education and literature, and
on the idea that no Katha child shall
live in poverty,” says Dharmarajan, an
English literature alumna of Madras
University and former assistant editor
of the best-selling weekly I ndi a Today
and the P enn G az ette (founded by Dr.
Benjamin Franklin) of the University Geeta Dharmarajan: storytelling pedagogy innovator
of Pennsylvania (1983-85).
After returning to India, in 1987 newspaper, an impressively-equipped Creativity for the Katha Relevant Ed-
Dharmarajan founded Tam asha, a music room and recording studio; ucation for All-Round Development
Hindi language health awareness even filmmaking equipment. Katha (KREAD) and provides alternative
quarterly for slum children, with a (‘story’ in English) bases its educa- education to 2,000 children living in
Rs.5 lakh grant from Unicef. A year tional approach on storytelling and eight slum clusters of Govindpuri.
later, it morphed into Katha, a chil- also runs a publishing house, research The centre also hosts the Katha
dren’s publications NGO. “We publish and resource centre for children’s School of Entrepreneurship (KSE,
enjoyable children’s books using our books and local writers — translating estb.1995) and Katha Information
storytelling pedagogy in Hindi and stories into English and Hindi from Technology and E-commerce School
English translated from 21 regional 21 regional Indian languages. Here, (KITES, estb.2001). Promoted in 1995,
Indian languages,” says Dharmarajan, Gappers can take up an internship to KSE provides short-term courses cer-
now based in Chennai. become proofreaders, copywriters and tified by the Union ministry of human
atha is, however, more than a researchers, even doing some creative resource development and National
Kchildren’s books publishing en- writing of their own.” Institute of Open Schooling in tailor-
terprise. Its multi-tasking is perhaps Since inception, Katha has provid- ing, dress design, bakery and food pro-
best described by Tim Walker, a Brit- ed alternative education to 9.8 million cessing to 150 underprivileged youth
ish university student who spent his children living in the slums of Delhi annually. KITES, a joint initiative of
gap year in India including an intern- NCR, trained 20,000 government Katha and British Telecom, provides
ship stint with Katha. On his return to school teachers in ‘storypedagogy’ year-long ICT skills training to batch-
the UK, he wrote about his experience and has networked with 3,000 librar- es of 300 youth residing in the Gov-
at the Katha Lab School and several ians to enhance the reading skills of indpuri slums. Thus far, KITES has
government schools in India where more than 1 million children aged trained 30,000 youth.
this NGO implements its School 5-17 years. With the passage of time Katha’s child-centric initiatives
Quality Enhancement Programme Katha Lab School, promoted in 1990, are supplemented by community de-
(SQEP). Writing in the influential has transformed into the Centre of velopment programmes under which
London-based I ndep endent (August this innovative NGO runs income
14, 2006), he says: “The Katha organ- generation and skills training pro-
isation has its own schools, welcome After imposition of the Co- grammes for women residing in the
oases in the Delhi slums, reaching vid-19 national lockdown, proliferating slums of the national
out to 7,000 underprivileged children capital city. Every year, it presents its
across the sprawling capital. The pu- Katha’s 120-strong team D i lli k i S haan (Pride of Delhi) Awards
pils at the main Katha (Lab) school are has swiftly switched to on- to 15 women community leaders. The
given opportunities that many British line teaching-learning impact of Katha’s sustained Dilli ki
schoolchildren would envy — a school Shaan women’s development pro-

JULY 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 57