SCHOOLING

In July 2009, Reality Gives along with our partner EDUCO launched a kindergarten in Dharavi. Dharavi is the largest slum in Mumbai and India - and often claimed to be the largest in all of Asia.

This is the beginning of bringing the Reality Gives vision to life: Providing quality education to all children regardless of their background or wealth. Our aim is to expand our operations soon, offering more kindergarten services as well as expand to primary education.

Our new kindergarten is using the teaching methods of Muktangan, one of the most estalished and esteemed educational non-profit organisations in Mumbai. Muktangan offers alternatives to orthodox educational practices in India. Designed to avoid many of the pitfalls of the mainstream educational system, the Muktangan educational model offers a sustainable example of low-cost, high-quality English-medium education for the economically deprived sections of society.

We focus on the quality of the education, which allows the child to be creative and make choices for him- or herself, teaching them to think independently and not to have decisions forced upon them. The method has similarities to the Montessori, Piaget and Steiner models, but also stresses the importance of the family and community in the development of the child

An important part of the Muktangan low-cost model is to use women from the community as teachers. Training and continual support for the teachers is essential for the school's success and several hours daily are dedicated to this, including one hour of English tuition.

The Reality Gives kindergarten is located in the pottery area of “Kumbharwada” in Dharavi. Our long term goal is to assist Muktangan to spread their message, and to try and implement their teaching methods in other parts of Dharavi and Mumbai - in the kindergartens and also in primary schools.