LOVE this news about successful volunteers’ skills-share and achievements in Chitardai primary school in India. Dianne regularly re-visits projects and local partners to assess achievements and future needs … this just in:

“Now I am about to leave Chitardai, I just want to say how pleased I am both with the level of support given to the current volunteers by the teachers at Chitardai and with the quality of their teaching and focus on the job, both of which are much improved from when I was last here.

“I am also delighted with the evidence that input from volunteers has been both valued and continued after they have left.  Of course some resources brought by volunteers have not proved appropriate and have been left unused.  However I have seen evidence of teachers buying resources of their own so they can continue the teaching style they have been shown by volunteers, and evidence in children’s books of a style of learning I suggested 4 years ago still being used by children throughout the school now.

“I have also been told by a new teacher about teaching styles volunteers demonstrated being taught to him by a Chitardai teacher I and other volunteers worked with who has now left, and by a teacher from another school that he is still using resources I distributed at a teachers’ workshop in 2011.

“Yesterday three students from class 8 went to a Science Fair at a secondary school in Deogarh; they took with them Science resources used with them by a volunteer last year, demonstrated them to all other students at the Fair, talking about them in both Hindi and English, and won the top award and a commendation for the school from the local education committee.

This is real evidence of the success of the volunteering programme here and I am truly encouraged by it.

“NB: I repeated my teacher training session today to 8 teachers from Chitardai and other local schools.  It seemed to go well and I hope it leads to equally long-lasting results.”

 

 

 

Thanks to all Chitardai volunteers – previous, present & future. Your work is so valuable and valued.

(you can read about our local partners, Ibex, here)