The answers: A holistic approach

The answers to most of the current issues are so obvious that it is almost impossible to believe they have not been addressed before. Access to safe drinking water, handing out of fruit twice a week (at least during the winter months), comfortable furniture, additional teaching materials, providing notebooks and pencils to the poorest students, scholarships to the neediest girls. All these do not require an huge effort or an enormous amount of organization. These are within reach of most schools now, especially with a little financial help from outside.

But this is only half the answer, the other half is in the in the field of the non tangible and needs to come in the form of a different way of teaching, a different way of approaching children.

Our Motto:
Education must be of a new type for the sake of the creation of a new world.
M.K. Gandhi

A problem so universal and with concerns so high is impossible to tackle from just one angle. If we want to be really successful we have to tackle it from all sides simultaneously. To the outside world this might look rather ambitious, but we have already proven that it can be done. Including all the factors mentioned so far we have come to a 7-step approach, our “plan de campagne”.

Step 1
Creating community awareness by showing the success of our own community.

Step 2
Creating an early childhood classroom for the 3-6 year olds. Staffing it with loving and caring teachers who will guide the children in their own creativity. Focusing on strong teacher – child relationships.

Step 3
Upgrading the existing infra-structure with safe drinking water supply and electricity as well as adequate toilet facilities and making sure the children can receive First Aid on the spot if they need it.

Step 4
Creating a library and making sure children get the opportunity to read at will, to draw pictures from books, to tell stories, to turn stories into plays, etc.

Step 5
Providing educational materials like the ones we have now tested since early 2006 in our own school in our own community.

Step 6
Providing teacher trainings. Giving teachers an opportunity to see how new teaching techniques work. Helping teachers realize that teaching is fun and not only a job which enjoys good social status in the community.

Step 7
Encouraging foreign teachers to volunteer in nepali primary schools for some time, as a valuable complement to the teacher trainings.

Preschool Centers

Education starts at birth and ends at death. Therefore it is important to give children a good start. Before a child undergoes formal education (the 3 ‘R’s) it should start to develop emotional, social and physical skills.

UNESCO shares our point of view by stating that early childhood education is the first goal of the Education for All program.

Nursery classes, kindergarten, preschool centers, early childhood education; they all hold a central role in our approach. They are especially important. It is here, even before school starts, that a sound base is laid for a new future. It is here that change can start to take shape.

Children should be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. Let the child learn his letters by observation as he does different objects, such as flowers, birds, etc., and let him learn handwriting only after he has learnt to draw objects. He will then write a beautifully formed hand.
- M.K. Gandhi

It is also here that we are able to assess a child’s progress, a child’s development. We can use charts to verify if children are growing according to a normal pattern, not only in weight and height but also in social and emotional matters.

Our vision, conversely, is child oriented; we look at education through the eyes of the child. Children need an affectionate and inspiring environment in which they can develop fully and become who they really are—beautiful children of Mother Earth.