Sex Education: The first Session

15 girls of Nav- Jeevan visit the CRTDP office for their first sex education- session

Jogita, a social worker, conducts the course together with her team. Part of her team are Ms. V. Jadhav, (program director of CRTDP) Babita, Shama and Sweta (three other social workers). The concept covers four afternoon sessions- yesterday, the first of them took place.

As an introductory roleplay, the girls had to form pairs and interview each other.
Pryianka and Anjelie asked each other the following questions:

What is your name?
Which good and which bad qualities do you have?
Who is your favourite hero?
Which things do you like?
Explain WHY!


After introducing themselves to their partner they had to switch personalities and introduce their friend to the group by pretending to be her.

The goal is to create confidence towards the team and to make the girls feel comfortable. After the roleplay they felt open minded and safe to ask personal questions.

Mrs. Vimal Jadhav started to talk about self condifence and strong personality and gave tips on how to improve it.

She gave detailed information about diseases and many tips on how to keep the body clean during the monthly period.

Among good FOOD, clean WATER, and a clean BODY, HEALTH in general was another important topic.







Homework for the girls:
Write down what you remember from this session.
Write down some questions to the given topic which will be discussed next time.

The girls were very grateful for the oppurtinity to talk openly about their questions and problems.

Making Nav- Jeevan more beautiful

Cleaning the compound

This is what the school compound looked like before ten boys started to clean up the trash

 

During their playtime Anurag, Ashish (4th class), Sahil, Samuel, Ruraj (5th class), Shreyash (6th class), Saurab (7th class), Rishi, Ajit (8th class) and Rahul (10th class) used some plastic bags to collect the trash that the 130 hostel children leave on the compound from time to time.
 

The elder ones even carefully picked up some glass, found some shoes and clothes and lots of plastic bottles.

They had to wash their hands with soap properly...

... and as a small thank you- gift we gave them some sweets. 

Thank you boys for making Nav- Jeevan's compound more beautiful!

Independence Day

On Thursday, 15th August, we celebrated the 67th Independence Day. This was an exciting day for all of us!

The day started with the assembly, where Sir Takhur, a teacher, raised the Indian flag.

All the students had to warm up and do some exercices together.

Iris Wilkinson, the founder of the school, was the special guest!

Many kids had prepared dances for this day.

 

We also wanted to dance with the kids. That's why we prepared a dance to the song: 

Go Go Govinda!

The Independence Day was also Pritika's last day at the school. She had a great time here! We are all happy that she spend her summer vacation in Nagpur and organized the Science Lab. She did a great job!

As a goodbye present, she donated samosas and sweets to the kids.

The kids, teachers, guests and us enjoyed the day very much!

Sex Education at NJS

Meeting at the CRTDP Office

We have arranged this meeting between two teachers of Nav- Jeevan and social workers of the NGO CRTDP (Comprehension Rural Tribal Development Programme: http://www.crtdp.org/) to discuss How, When and Where the weekly sex education for the older girls from NJS will take place.

 

Together with the teachers from Nav- Jeevan we went to Nagpur where the CRTDP Office is located.

Yogita and Porinita work at the office as social workers. Visiting schools and villages to educate the Indian population about sexually transmitted diseases is part of their work and that is why we had the idea of working together.
The two teachers of our school seemed to be having a little sex education lesson themselves during the short meeting! 

The skilled women of the CRTDP office use many different flip charts to convey the information in a way that young people understand.

 

During one and a half hour of discussion in Hindi we often asked them to translate the most important things into English. The teachers are impressed by the work of CRTDP so that we hope that the sex education for the NJS-girls can begin next friday. Still to discuss with Vicky, the principal, is the setting of the programme. We are looking forward to next week and will keep you updated on how things are going with this important topic!

New Look for the Boys

This was an exciting day for the boys: A local hairdresser visited the school and cut their hair. 


After waiting in line....

....every boy finally got his haircut.

Yash is very happy about his new look!! 

What a difference! Sahil looks great! 

Kabaddi

Today was a fun day for the children as there were a lot of games and dancing going on at NJS! Some boys played the game Kabaddi, which really caught our eye. In the game, two teams are split up on a field, each on opposite sides of the middle line. The two teams take turns sending a 'raider' to the opposite team's side, who has to try and tag on of the opposing players, all while holding their breath and chanting 'kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi' as long as possible. The goal of the game is for the raider to tag an opponent and then cross the middle line without being tackled by the other team.  The boys had a great time, see how it played out below!

Team 1 vs. Team 2

Running over the line to tag an opponent

Running back safely

Things can get very competetive!

Trying to tag one of the opponents

Caught!

Having fun!

Teacher's Lunch!

Today was a special day at Nav- Jeevan, as some of the teachers decided that they would donate a special lunch to the students. This is what Sarika teacher, Prerna teacher and Rashmi teacher cooked: Paular (rice with potato, cauliflower, tomato, onion, garlic and spices), curry and curd sauce, Bhagia (onions and chillis fried in wheat flour), raw carrots and cucumber and lastly,  Kheer (sweet rice pudding with dried fruits) as dessert. 

The teachers do this once a year for the students as a gift to them because they know that most of the students come from poor families that cannot provide their children with such healthy and at the same time delicious food. All together today's meal for 200 children cost the teachers ₹7,000 (about US$115,

 €86). The children loved it and thanked the teachers profusely! 

Here are some of the pictures:

Sarika teacher, Prerna teacher and Rashmi teacher- the kind teachers who donated this meal 

The children are very grateful for their food

The food

All smiles!

What a child's meal at Nav- Jeevan looks like

Priyanka loved it!

Iris Wilkinson, one of the founders of the school, joined for the special lunch

Thank you to the teachers for a wonderful lunch! 

*If you would like to donate a meal to the school, please contact us 

at navjeevanblog@gmail.com. A meal for 

200 students costs  US$115, €86 or ₹7,000. 

                         Thank you!

An Interview with Kushi

This is Kushi Dhumal

She lives in the school hostel and is in 2nd grade.

Today she told us about her day:

"My name is Kushi, I am 5 years old" 

                              Her teacher helped translate the difficult questions

Kushi woke up at 6:30 and brushed her teeth, took a bath and got dressed up in the school uniform. Shada, an older girl who lives at the hostel helped Kushi do her hair.

She had breakfast with 120 other children in the cafeteria. Mostly they get rice and dhal.

At 9:00am school starts with the assembly.

Kushi sings the indian national anthem followed by the song 'We shall overcome'  along with the rest of the school children. This is how the children start their school days.

After the first 6 periods the younger children get their food at 12:30pm and Kushi is very happy today about the special food she only gets once a year, since the teachers have donated it.

Her favourite food is Kheer but she also lovesStrawberry Shake as well as Gulab Gamun which is an indian sweet. 

Kushi eats the sweets on weddings or on birthdays so she only has the possibility to enjoy them two or three times a year. Today is a special day because the children got Kheer (a sweet rice pudding) for lunch.

After finishing lunch, Kushi is very thirsty. Above you can see her drinking the filtered water out of the huge watertank.

Two years ago, NJS didn't filter their water and as a result many children got infected with Typhus. Luckily, NJS now has a water filter so they can now provide clean water to the children everyday.

Kushi is old enough to clean her own dishes and after lunch she returned to her classes until 15:00. When the non-hostel girls and boys leave the school with the schoolbus, Kushi has time to change her clothes. Kushi's favorite after school activities are playing, watching TV and studying.She is very exited and can't wait till Thursday the 15th. This is the indian independance day and the school will be hosting a celebration.