Covid Build Back – An Initiative to Help Resume Normalcy!

School reopenings continue to remain elusive and we are greatly aware of the gaps in learning, digital access and disrupted peer interaction for children across the country. During difficult times like this, children especially adolescents, are left vulnerable to drop out of school either for work or child marriage. Our grassroots level surveys indicate that there is a deep learning crisis afoot with an uptick in child malnourishment. This is compounded by a spike in child marriage, child labor and child abuse. Adolescents are not getting the emotional support they deserve as well. It’s important this gets the attention and action it deserves as we continue our vigilance and support to help our children get back to normalcy!

To help our teachers mitigate the after effects of this pandemic ILP has put in place digital outreach programs for teachers on various “learning & coping” areas. Topics included Visual & Experiential learning in Science, Social Studies with Google Earth, Adolescent Career Guidance & Counselling, Life Skills : Social, Emotional & Thinking, Sustainable menstrual hygiene.
To address the deep learning loss and enable social activity time to help children cope with the socio-emotional pressures, ILP has designed a community-based learning initiative with the support of village volunteers. It is a three-pronged approach that focuses on

1. Children’s protection (Suraksha & Swasthya)
2. Children’s learning (Vidya)
3. Career guidance

Together with our partners we will be implementing this initiative across our areas of operation. Our community organizers and volunteers will take on roles to enable the three prongs of the program. We are doing this primarily to promote and strengthen foundational learning for the kids of primary schools through activities and games; while focusing on Career Guidance for the adolescents.