Visiting the ILP Hyderabad Chapter Head Office

As a first step, I spoke with my CAS coordinator Mrs. Shalini Samuel. I asked her if I could conduct some code literacy workshops for the children of the school support staff on Saturdays or Sundays. This could give me easy access to the children and I would also have the necessary devices for teaching them by using the school computer labs. However, she expressed certain concerns which were critical in changing my decision. She informed me that in her experience as a CAS coordinator, the children typically have schools on Saturday with Sunday being the only day that they get a holiday. She said that motivating the children to come over a weekend would be a challenge. Also, it would be necessary to arrange transport for these children as they would need drop off and pickup facilities. I realized that arranging transport from different localities would be something that I would rather avoid as it involved many complications: including coordinating with the drivers, arranging for a support staff to be present in the bus for the security of children and ensuring that every child reaches home safely. I decided to explore other options and for the moment, kept teaching at school premises on the side.

The next choice was to approach the government schools in and around my locality and talk to them about my mission. That way I will not need to worry about transport or getting the children together because I will be teaching at their school premises. But, I soon realized that this will not be that straightforward, as unless I have some credible authority, the government schools are less likely to grant me the permission I need. Also, another critical requirement for my project was to get access to government schools which have computers. So, scouting around and looking for such schools would be another big challenge. At this point, I decided that maybe it might be a better idea to approach NGOs or NPOs who are already associated with the government schools and have access to these children. That is when I decided to connect with the India Literacy Project (ILP). ILP is a “developmental support organization that works in partnership with local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and networks in India to play the role of a catalyst for literacy.” I got in touch with Mr. Manmohan, the Chairperson of the ILP over phone who in turn got me in touch with Mr. Shravan, the ILP Hyderabad coordinator. I setup an appointment with Mr. Shravan on the 17th of May to update him on my mission, hoping to get his approval of reaching out to the children of the government school through ILP support.