Month: January 2022

India has massive potential due to its relatively young population, which can fuel growth and enhance its standing in the world. But that human potential is not fully realised because of a lack of effective education. No Help Too Big (NHTB) is doing its bit to move the needle in a positive direction.

Starting with 40 students in the village of Chuttu, enrolment has grown to over 1,000. NHTB provides education by conducting classes in person and online for women and children. During this process, NHTB identified major problems: a lack of foundational knowledge; children being far behind in basic reading and maths for their age/class (with lack of guidance as the main issue). Many women had never been to school and therefore find it difficult to support their children’s education. Children are often reluctant to seek guidance from their parents because they feel their parents aren’t educated enough to teach.

NHTB addresses these problems by running in-person classes for children wherever qualified teachers are available. Elsewhere, classes are conducted online. NHTB focuses on teaching basic concepts, spoken English, personality development, motivational and positive-psychology talks, cognitive skills, social-emotional skills, extracurricular activities, career counselling, and family counselling, as well as support for entrance-exam preparation for ITI, police, and government clerical exams.

Our mission is to help students throughout their journey to becoming self-reliant. (Phones for online classes are often borrowed and shared among children.) All personality-development sessions are conducted by professional trainers who have delivered similar programmes for employees at companies such as IBM and Infosys. The curriculum is developed by specialists from a reputable school chain and includes both learning and assessments.

All counselling sessions are held under the guidance of an AIIMS psychologist. These include career, life, and motivational sessions (conducted by interns who are psychology majors from a reputable university, under professional supervision).

As part of our educational initiative to enable every child to live up to their full potential, we have partnered with MentoMind, a unique learning platform that combines academic learning with the development of a growth mindset and self-belief. Both children and women can access the MentoMind app’s features. New features are coming, such as recorded video sessions in local languages, so students can study at their own pace (some people find it difficult to join classes at a given time due to phone availability, network problems, or daily labour schedules).

Women trained in community classes can now read and write and are therefore employed in roles funded by government schemes. For example, they help people fill application forms, open and manage bank accounts, and conduct classes for other women in nearby villages.

Introduction:

Harrowing digestive problems and severe stomach aches affected people in Assam, Jharkhand, and other Indian states. These illnesses occurred sporadically. People had nowhere to seek help, and they did not know the cause. A few who consulted doctors were told that the reason was consumption of contaminated water from local water bodies.

For some villages, water sources were kilometres away, so women had to walk long distances to collect unsafe water—trips that often took most of the day and sometimes led to road accidents and deaths. In Assam’s Darrang district, many villages relied on very poor-quality groundwater for drinking and cooking. Some villages, such as Sidpahadi and Chuttu in Jharkhand, had government-installed hand pumps that had not worked for years, leading to water scarcity. Our goal is to learn about and help resolve area-specific water problems.

How:
The NHTB team worked closely with villagers to repair old hand pumps and install new ones, and trained them to maintain the pumps. The team raised awareness about hygiene and the role of unsafe water in many of the diseases affecting people. In parts of Assam and Jharkhand, communities are now more self-sufficient in addressing water issues. People take good care of the hand pumps and have started locking them to prevent misuse.

Many districts in Assam and Jharkhand have iron-rich water, which is not advisable for drinking. This water can have adverse effects on the kidneys over time. It cannot be made safe by boiling, so filtration is the only option. The NHTB team deployed water-filtration technology (mechanical, not requiring electricity) at no or minimal cost. Now hundreds of villagers drink filtered water every day.

Villages in Uttarakhand, which is in the highlands, have no easy access to groundwater, and carrying water up from the lowlands is very expensive. The NHTB team developed rainwater-harvesting systems to address water-availability issues cost-effectively.

Collaboration:
The NHTB team collaborated with IIT Bombay (Mumbai) to develop cost-effective rainwater-harvesting and filtration systems. Engineers provided live installation guidance to field staff and now support ongoing maintenance.