A Visit to SKB, West Bengal

It was a cold and wintry day when I went to Sarada Kalyan Bhandar (SKB) -
January 23rd, 2003, Netaji's birthday. I had informed Rekhadi, one of the
directors of SKB, earlier about my visit. She herself had come to receive
me at the station at 9 AM. We got into a car and I was whisked away
through the congested Midnapur roads to Gabnala, where all the kids were.

SKB provides supplementary coaching for the children of nine villages. The
kids from Bhagabatipally, Rangamati and Pakhijapally come to study at
Rangamati, children from Khejurdanga, Nichugope, Hamarpata and Gabnala
come to study at Gabnala. The children from Baisakhipally and Indirapally
have their own centers. All the centers run on quite an ad-hoc basis - in
general there is no roof and the children study under banyan trees and on
shared porches. Recently SKB was granted a land donation by the West
Bengal government. We at Asha have been working with them since to raise a
building on that land and provide them with some permanence. Construction
is in process at a place close to Indirapally, the ninth village. Children
from Indirapally currently study at the construction site, on a cemented
platform.

We soon reached Gabnala. It was about a mile out of the town. It being a
national holiday, all the kids from the four centers had come to Gabnala.
They were waiting for us, assembled to sing songs and do exercises. After
the assembly they broke up into small groups and sat in circles all over
the "chatal." A "chatal" is typically a cemented area in a village where
they dry the paddy and separate the rice grain from the husk after the
paddy season.

I walked around the place and talked to the children studying there. They
were of different classes from Nursery all the way to Class IV. The
teachers were quite young - I was later informed that they were all
financially supported by SKB for their higher studies. It being a holiday,
the group had managed to convince the local primary school to allow SKB to
use their space for studies. Some of the older students were having
classes inside the classrooms of the primary school. They were having
music classes and yoga training besides the normal English, Bengali, Math,
Social and Physical Sciences. In fact, the yoga demonstration made me feel
that the kids should participate in regional gymnastics contests and the
likes.

After this I walked to a place, a little further from the "chatal", where,
under a huge banyan tree, the rest of the older students (Class VI
onwards) were studying. It was a very peaceful scene, far from the madding
crowds of the city, in the lap of nature. It reminded me of Rabindranath
Tagore's ideas of how a University should be - he modeled Shantiniketan
after that, but how far his ideas have been realized there is debatable.
For a long moment, I wished I had spent my student life under such a
tree... Soon I awoke from my reveries to note that studying under the mere
protection of a banyan tree would have dampened my studies quite a bit,
especially during the monsoons. They were studying Math and Sciences. Some
were working out problems on the unitary method. The teacher seemed to be
very competent - he was doing a BSc in Math at the local Midnapur College.

Soon, the kids dispersed for the day and we went to the construction site.
It is at a location central to the nine villages. Even though it was a
national holiday, there were some workers and masons laying bricks. The
total anticipated costs of raising the complete ground floor of the
building was about $45,000. Since we were hesitant about such a large
amount of money, they worked on one side of the building. The left side,
looking into the area, has been raised now. They have almost finished work
on the toilets, the septic tank and the stage in the middle. Whitewashing,
electrical wiring, adding doors, windows and furniture in the rooms were
yet to be done. Through their own efforts SKB has raised about $6,000.
Asha NYC/NJ had sent in about $10,000 some time before this. The project
had also been approved for $9,000 through Asha General Funds. (This amount
was disbursed early in March.) They were going ahead with the construction
on a zero interest loan in anticipation of the latter amount. It has taken
an incredible effort in bringing the project this far; a little more
effort is much needed, especially from our side.

Education in West Bengal is plagued by the "coaching" disease. Teachers
employed in schools have discovered that teaching outside the school is a
business that somehow evades the eyes of the government (and hence, is
tax-free), and at the same time, lucrative. So the tendency of teachers is
to teach casually in class, so that students parents are compelled to
employ their services outside of class. The fallout of this model is that
education is immensely expensive, nothing is taught in school, and the
poor and uneducated who cannot afford education remain unenthused. SKB
came in here to give free remedial coaching to the otherwise school-going
poor children of the villages. Just outside SKB's new building under
construction, I saw such a coaching center, which of course, only the
children of the wealthy can afford to go to.

We came back to Midnapur town, where SKB has an offce. It is quite a
spacious building and spotlessly clean. From here they coordinate all the
other activities of SKB - organizing the health camps and providing
financial assistance for students in higher education. They also have a
small library, where there are text books of all kinds. I offered to send
them childrens' books through Asha's new scheme. Rekhadi talked about
their different needs - how it is very difficult to retain the young and
talented teachers who have high aspirations, how more and more needy
students are coming to them for financial assistance when their funds are
so limited, and how sources of corporate sponsorship are drying up. Asha
NYC/NJ supports six women fully for their higher education. I was under
the impression that there were only six women in their higher education
program, while there were about 400 men. This was not correct. Although
the percentage of women in their programs is not very healthy - about 35%,
they cannot afford to have full financial support for all of them. They
offer full financial aid only when they must. That explained why we have
been supporting six women for the last three years. The entire higher
education scheme works on a facilitating basis. They find sponsors and
redirect the money to the student. As we drifted on to different things, I
gave Rekhadi more insight into how Asha works and how we are a set of
volunteers who try to dream.

It was about 3 PM when I decided to leave. I had to take the train once
again, to go home. To sum up, it was a great learning experience for me. I
feel fortunate to have been touched by people who are doing such good
work.

- Shouri Chatterjee