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In the second week of December, our team came across a requirement of grocery supplies for two differently-abled siblings from Siddipet, through a social media post. Upon investigation, we found that the siblings under 12 years of age were not only differently-abled but had lost their father few years ago and their mother one day ago. The kids were in deplorable condition. Our team immediately attended to the kids, provided them with some nutritious food, and made arrangements to move the children to the CCI specials homes with the help of CDPO, MRO, ICPS & Village officials. By the second week of January, the children were safely housed in the CCI special homes.
Survivors of child sexual abuse face many challenges as they recover heal from the trauma they go through. This is the story of a 15-year old minor girl from Sircilla district, who was sexually abused by her deceased father’s friend and neighbor several times over a period and impregnated by him. The girl’s father had committed suicide due to financial hardships and her mother made meager income by rolling Beedi at home. When the mother found out, the girl was 5-month pregnant, and immediately reported to the police station to seek help. When the Child line team received a call from the police station in regard, we immediately rushed to attend to the victim along with the ICPS & Sakhi team. In line with the procedure, the child was taken to the Primary health check-up center for a preliminary check-up, where the doctors confirmed that she was in her 5th month of pregnancy. One of the biggest challenges for our team has been how to deal with children who are preganant rape victims. We consulted the District medical care to understand the risks of aborting the child. The doctors confirmed that the minor girl was in good health and that an abortion can be performed. We approached the Hon’ble District court for direction on the course of action and the court granted permission to abort the child under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) (Amendment) Act 2021, after receiving the girl’s and her mother’s consent. Based on the court’s direction and doctor’s opinion, the girl was admitted to the Government hospital for termination of the pregnancy and discharged after 3 days. Child line has the vision to ensure that every child has a safe, secure, and happy childhood. We are committed to our efforts to rescue children in distress, and rehabilitate them by working in close coordination with Government infrastructure and departments.
In December, we received a call on the 1098 Child line toll-free number from a teenage boy in Class 10 from Suddala Village; he was distressed about being issued a TC ( transfer certificate ) by his headmaster. Based on his request for assistance, we approached the headmaster, where we learned that the boy and his sister have been absent from the school for a long time, and the school has been unable to establish any contact with them despite repeated phone calls. We reached out to the boy’s parents and found that his mother was completely unaware of her children’s absenteeism. She was under an impression that her children have been regularly attending online classes on their mobile phones. On further investigation, we found that both the children were so addicted to playing games over their mobile phones, that they were skipping classes to play games. With the increasing dependency on smartphones & the internet to keep up with school work in this post-covid time, teens have developed a complex relationship with technology, pushing them towards an addictive disorder. Incidents like this have become very rural regions, and parents in these regions are often not very effective in monitoring kids due to their inherent disconnect with modern technology.In this case, we took up counseling sessions for the boy, his sister, and their parents educating them on the benefits of using technology and the pitfalls of such behaviors. We educated the kids on the consequences of losing focus on school work and counseled the parents on the importance of monitoring the kids. On our request to the headmaster, and the parents’ written assurance to monitor their kids, the boy and his sister were were allowed back to school. There are increasing cases and studies that show how many students from rural India studying in grades 10 & 12 drop out of school, because of cell phone addiction. This adversely affects the children life who end up wasting hours in mindless scrolling, games, etc. The team at Earth foundation is very committed to ensuring that children do not discontinue their education, and work relentlessly to bring back children who have dropped out back to school.
Earth foundation tailors an exclusive material for Indian government school students, which will help in reinforcing concepts of the school curriculum on their cognitive minds; through practicing sheets. They are, exercise, handwriting and skill based material. With the support of the head masters of respective adopted schools, the earth foundation’s vidya volunteers, supervise students, by helping them to complete the work sheets. As the worksheets are syllabus based, they will help students in understanding their subjects and lessons in creative way, going forward the material will also help the students to face exams without any fear. These activities will happen in all adopted schools regularly. As the students started enjoying the worksheets, the head masters of all adopted schools have created a separate class for doing the work sheets.
Well grooming is most practiced self disciplined activity by our students, the team makes sure to conduct frequent classes for hygiene, grooming and school etiquettes. Uniform is, one important attire which erases all kinds of differences among kids; which ever walks of life they come from, not all students can afford uniform in government schools, so keeping this into consideration, earth foundation has come up with distribution of uniform campaign, from many years, for all adopted schools. In the month of December Gopal Nagar school students received uniform, Honourable DSP, DEO, Municipal commissioner and many other government officials along with the school and earth foundation team attended this event. They have all appreciated the team for their efforts in adopting and supporting earth foundation.
Sports are the most essential activity for our foundation students, they not only energize the students also help them in their focus and building physical strength. Our students showed huge improvement in developing Sports sprit; right from the time we introduced sports as a curriculum, once we adopt any school. People always find our foundation kids more enthusiastic than, private schools in those respective districts. In the month of December our instructors have taken classes about the importance of warm-up exercises. They taught the students various warm-up exercises and supervised the students; while they were doing it also explained the students, the benefits of warm-up exercise before hitting the play ground.
Awareness sessions about various sports is equally important for any sport’s person, our physical education trainers are certified bachelor degree holders, they make sure to give techniques for the students about the sport they are into, this month the trainers have taken theory and practical classes for running and long jump.
December month witnessed vigorous dance practices in all schools for upcoming republic day celebration ( on January 26th ), our dance trainers who see their spirits in their students are very much occupied in travelling across all adopted schools, for training the students. This is one activity our foundation students eagerly wait for, also huge recognition for the foundation too, as our kids keep bagging prizes in ever competition they participate.
District level Dance Competition happened on 9th of Dec 2021 in Sircilla where total 43 groups taken part, among which 16 groups were from private schools, 8 from different dance academies and 7 groups from various government schools. Beating all those 43 groups our adopted schools; Gopal Nagar and Nimmapally school students won 1st and 2nd prize respectively in the state level competition. We have dedicative dance trainers who always work hard to create different dance items and make sure to conduct regular classes. Without their efforts and student’s hard work this would have not been possible.
Also our Gopal Nagar students G. keerthana and E.Rahul bagged 1st and 3 rd price respectively, in Essay writing and drawing competitions. This was also a district level competition conducted by Sri Lambodara Cultural Academy at Sircilla on 24th Dec 2021, The Total number of Participant were 822 among which government Schools were 8, Private Schools were 9.
The reason behind winning is, constant training and sincere practice; this can be understood from below shown drawing photos of our foundation kids.
Our Physical activity trainers conduct yoga classes on regular basis in all adopted schools. Students displayed remarkable positive transformation, in studies, behaviour, focus and self discipline. They have also become confident during social interactions and allowed them be achievers. Our instructors make sure to work on implementing various Yoga postures which will help the child, during their growing age.
The December month witnessed a positive energy in students, while and after yoga sessions, the students and parents expressed their appreciation to find “full of life nature” in their kids especially after the schools re opened post pandemic. They said these kind of activities keep their children away from being lazy they could see the positive change among their kids.
