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ILP Partners Meet 2006 – A Review
ILP Partners Meet 2006 was conducted from August 9 – 12
at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.
As with earlier ones, ILP’s Partners Meet 2006 concluded
with constructive outcomes in terms of thoughts, ideas, suggestions,
discussions, and information sharing. The ILP Partners from Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Orissa and Delhi participated at the
meet. Following is a summary of the meet.
Day1: A significant part of Day 1 was devoted to partner
presentations. All the partners presented their activities and programs
related to ILP. This was an interactive session that kicked-off the
information sharing amongst partners and set the tone for the entire
event. It is wonderful to work with partners with such a variety of
interests, concentrations, goals, approaches, and capabilities.
This diversity amongst the partners both in terms of the
developmental aspects they are trying to address and geographic spread is
key to ILP in accomplishing its mission to create a comprehensive
repository of education and literacy know-how.
This was followed by a lecture by Shri Vasudeva Sharma on
Five-year Plans and Child Development. He outlined the various
initiatives and concerns in the 11th Five Year Plan of the Govt.
related to children and education. He also held an open discussion
with the participants on their vision and views on the child development in
the 11th Plan.
Day 2: The focus for Day 2 was Early Childhood
Development, focusing on the 0-6 age-group. Ms. Usha Abrol, former
Regional Director of the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child
Development [NIPCCD], Bangalore, discussed various concerns and the need
for focus on the 0-6 age group. She discussed the issues in different
topics such as Situational Analysis of the children in the age group of 0-6
in India; Early Child Care and Development [ECCD] programme in India; Accessibility and Quality of Services for child development; and ICDS and
Crèche Programme – A Review.
She took a fancy and very effective approach of dividing the
participants into groups leading to better interaction and understanding
amongst the groups, by focusing on vital issues at the grass root
level. The end result was several suggestions from the partners to
effectively advance the ECCD programme in the country.
Day 3: In first part of the day, Dr Shantha Sinha,
from MV Foundation, Hyderabad, talked on the Right to Education Bill 2005.
She is involved in the drafting committee on compulsory education.
She shared her experiences from working with the high level
committees. She effectively argued that Right To Education [RTE] and
Child Labour are very much related on more than one count. She
explained different aspects of the bill – both positive and negative
and emphasize the importance of the bill and the urgent need to bring
pressure on the government through widespread advocacy efforts.
Later that day, Ms Anuradha Joshi, co-founder of SIDH,
Mussourie spoke on their experiments with Pre-Primary education. Ms.
Joshi exhibited pictures and charts used in their schools as a tool to
explain the various training programs offered by the SIDH for the teachers
of pre-primary school.
Partners’ interaction: In this session, there was
lot of constructive suggestions, feed back from ILP to its partners and
vice versa. There was lot of discussion about key issues on mutual
interests.
Future needs: The interaction was also focused on assessing
the future needs of the NGOs, while working with ILP or with any Partners.
Victor constructively and frankly pointed out areas around NGO’s
performances and commitment, where there is scope for improvement.
Day 4: Exposure visit to the organizations involved in
the field of child development, education and girl child development.
The partners were given a chance to visit DIVYA DISHA & PRAJWALA
in Hyderabad. This was another interactive session where all partners
had an opportunity to see the workings of a sister NGO in action and
experience first hand the various factors that went into the success of the
programs on the ground.
Overall, ILP and its partners carried lot of constructive and
positive ideas, and thoughts with them while walking out at the end of the
partners meet. The sessions were very informative and the special
lectures by experts in various fields were an eye-opener to ILP and its
partners. This is another step in adding to the knowledge base in the
journey towards a 100% literate India.
Detailed proceedings of the event can be found online at http://www.ilpnet.org/
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