Ruchika Blog

Over 1200 people including adolescents from the slum and street, children from other organizations, slum community, organizational staff, people from corporate sector, support agencies, celebrities, people’s leader, religious leaders, media, social activists and government officers responsible for ensuring child rights and human rights participated in the painting. Among others, Sri Sivanand Ray, President Bhubaneswar Auto Mahasangh, Sri Naba Mohanty, President, Rajdhani Auto Mahasangh, Sri Padman Samal, Secretary, Bhubaneswar Auto Mahasangh, Mrs. Archana Khosla, Project Coordinator, Regional Science Centre, Mr. Subhasish Das, Curator E, Birla Industrial and Technologial Museum, Kolkata, Ms. Usha Rani Das, Under Secretary, W & CD Department, Mr. Anand Patnaik, Leader, BJD and Social Activist, Dr. J. J. Sharma, President of the Indian Physiotherapy Practitioner Association, were present and encouraged the children by painting with them.

The children were distributed with a take home gift by the special guests Mr. Subhasish Das and Mr. Sivananda Ray.

Idea of organizing such a colourful program is to create an opportunity for the people to think about human rights and how it is related to HIV & AIDS.

The entire program was dedicated to the founder Secretary of Ruchika, Late Mrs. Inderjit Khurana on her 75^th Birth anniversary. This year, the Ruchika Social Service Organisation is completing its 25 years of services with the children and youth and celebrating Silver Jubilee.

About fifty best paintings were selected by a team of artist Juries which would be placed in the Silver Jubilee souvenir of Ruchika. Sri Fakir Mohan Mallick, sr. artist and sculpture, Sri Rabi Rath, Proprietor of Subhadra Art Gallery, Sri Binit Kumar Pande, eminent artist, Lukhnow and Sri Bijay Kumar Sahu, artist and Sri Sasikant Rout artist were in the jury team. They also did paintings with the children.

All the individual and group paintings were exhibited in the display wall at the premises of Regional Science Centre, Bhubaneswar for public. The exhibition was closed at 5.00 p.m.

Over 1200 people including adolescents from the slum and street, children from other organizations, slum community, organizational staff, people from corporate sector, support agencies, celebrities, people’s leader, religious leaders, media, social activists and government officers responsible for ensuring child rights and human rights participated in the painting. Among others, Sri Sivanand Ray, President Bhubaneswar Auto Mahasangh, Sri Naba Mohanty, President, Rajdhani Auto Mahasangh, Sri Padman Samal, Secretary, Bhubaneswar Auto Mahasangh, Mrs. Archana Khosla, Project Coordinator, Regional Science Centre, Mr. Subhasish Das, Curator E, Birla Industrial and Technologial Museum, Kolkata, Ms. Usha Rani Das, Under Secretary, W & CD Department, Mr. Anand Patnaik, Leader, BJD and Social Activist, Dr. J. J. Sharma, President of the Indian Physiotherapy Practitioner Association, were present and encouraged the children by painting with them.

The children were distributed with a take home gift by the special guests Mr. Subhasish Das and Mr. Sivananda Ray.

Idea of organizing such a colourful program is to create an opportunity for the people to think about human rights and how it is related to HIV & AIDS.

The entire program was dedicated to the founder Secretary of Ruchika, Late Mrs. Inderjit Khurana on her 75^th Birth anniversary. This year, the Ruchika Social Service Organisation is completing its 25 years of services with the children and youth and celebrating Silver Jubilee.

About fifty best paintings were selected by a team of artist Juries which would be placed in the Silver Jubilee souvenir of Ruchika. Sri Fakir Mohan Mallick, sr. artist and sculpture, Sri Rabi Rath, Proprietor of Subhadra Art Gallery, Sri Binit Kumar Pande, eminent artist, Lukhnow and Sri Bijay Kumar Sahu, artist and Sri Sasikant Rout artist were in the jury team. They also did paintings with the children.

All the individual and group paintings were exhibited in the display wall at the premises of Regional Science Centre, Bhubaneswar for public. The exhibition was closed at 5.00 p.m.

Dear friends and well wishers,

We would like to celebrate a success by sharing a great news with you. As you are aware, Ruchika runs 150 remedial education centres for the underprivileged children in Bhubaneswar slums with the support of Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF). It has adopted a number of innovative and effective education strategies like Friendship Education, Competency based coaching etc. to improve the academic proficiency of children.

With the support of MSDF, an academic expert group of Delhi viz. Indus Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd. has been conducting baseline and end line assessments of students and prepares a report based on Blooms Taxonomy for the last three years. A high professionally designed assessment, it takes a random sample from the Experimental Group (EG) with whom Ruchika intervenes and a Control Group (CG) a non intervention group of students for evaluation and compare the progress of academic proficiency of both the groups.

The end line assessment report of 2011-12 which is published yesterday has shown a remarkable progress of our students (EG) given as under. The assessment was conducted for the students of Grade III, Grade V and Grade VII.

Highlights of the Report

a) Increase in the number of students (EG) categorized as ‘Present Grade Level’ in the End line across all grades 3, 5 and 7.

b) In the End Line, number of experimental group students of grade 3 & grade 5 have increased significantly in the highest proficiency band (advanced proficiency – 80% to 100%), across Math and English II.

c) In the End Line, number of experimental group students of grade 7 have increased significantly in band 3 (50-79.9%) with some students reaching band 4 in English II. At the same time the number of students increased significantly in band 3, with no students achieving the highest proficient band in Math. The program effectiveness is more in grade 3 and 5 as compared to grade 7.

d) Performance of the experimental group students in the End Line has improved on Subjective items requiring extended written responses..

Improvement in the performance of the EG (experimental group) students of grade 3, 5 and in the End Line

a) Overall learning levels of grade 3 EG (experimental group) students in the End Line improved by 24% and 28% in Math and English II respectively.

b) Overall learning levels of grade 5 EG (experimental group) students in the End line improved by 28% and 32% in Math and English II respectively.

c) Overall learning levels of grade 7 EG (experimental group) students in the End Line improved by 12% and 35% in Math and English II respectively. e (Percentage Average Marks

BL% = Average percentage of mark secured in Base line assessment

EL % = Average percentage of mark secured in End line assessment

EG = Experimental Group (Intervened group of students)

CG = Control Group (Non-intervened group of students)

Ruchika Social Service Organisation had organized a special camp viz. Aviskar (Discovery) for the differently abled children. It was a week long program arranged at five places like Santi Palli, Mahaveer Basti, Jharana Basti, Press Colony and Bharatpur. The objective was to identify latent talents and potentiality among the children and create an opportunity for both children and their mothers to participate in some joyful activities and to give them a smile and a hope to lead a positive life. A total number of 140 children and their mothers participated in the program. The events were arithmetic race, needle race, spoon race, ludoo, chess, carom, music chair, song and storytelling, jhoti and huluhuli. Both the children and their mothers participated in different events. All participants were given a small take-home gift. Since we do not believe on competitions winner’s name were not announced. Everybody became a winner. It created a positive impact on the children.

We are in process of including the children with disability in the Niramaya scheme (Niramaya means healthy). About 15 children have already been registered. This is a kind of medical insurance. In this scheme each registered child can get medical reimbursement up to Rs.1,00,000/-. This seems a good scheme and the success depends on its workability.

There is also a scheme viz. Vaneeshree. Children with at least 40 % disability can be included into the scheme. They will get a stipend at the end of the year from the school. Till date 21 children have been included into the scheme.

A ‘Hygiene Week’ was organized by the Water and Sanitation Project from 22^nd November to 4^th December 2010 covering 33 slums of Bhubaneswar with a participant of 1659. The programme aimed at developing awareness and sensitizing the community on sanitation, health and hygiene so that they adopt better sanitation and hygienic practices and lead a healthy life. The programme included a clean drive involving the community and the project staff, cleaning the drains, roads, marshy areas, places having stagnated water, hand pump platforms etc. with bleaching powder. After the cleaning activities each participant was given a towel and soap so that they wash their hands and feet properly. The participants then gathered in the Ruchika Education Centers for a meeting where they were informed on personal hygiene. This drive was an initial stage and the community is encouraged to carry forward such initiatives so that they can experience a healthy atmosphere and a disease free life.

A global hand wash campaign was organized by Ruchika Social Service Organization on 24th Oct’09 which continued for four days. The main aim of this program was to create awareness and spread the message on hand washing. Ruchika came out with a unique idea of spreading this message on wheel.

The program covered 9 slums and eight schools in the first three days. Different activities like art competition, community meetings, demonstration on ;hand washing, street plays were organized which highlighted the message on hand washing. It is important to wash hands before handling of food and after defecation.

The concluding program was held at Ruchika High School with the participation of 8 partner organisation of WaterAid.