Visit to Dhankhet Vidyalaya

Koushik Dutta, UMass Amherst

I paid a short visit to Dhanket Vidyalaya during my recent trip to India in March, 2005. This was my first visit to Dhankhet. It was an hour and a half bus ride from the city Kolkata. I reached in the afternoon, and by then the usual school was over. Hence, I talked about and discussed different aspects of the school with the teachers, local volunteers, and students. On the historical note, the school was started by Mr. Nirmal Sengupta around 1965-67. He used to go to the houses of poor people, in remote areas and teach their children. At that time the school did not have any formal structure. Presently the school is in a two-storied building.

Although the focus of the school changes year to year, presently the school is working on the following projects:

1.Science Teaching: The idea of this project is to do science by hand and to invoke basic interests of science, among the common people. Students from class seven to nine from the local schools are involved in this program. Students visit Dhanket once or twice a week to do some science work. They have made a solar cooker, a telescope, a thermoflux, a weighing machine etc. I met the student who made the solar cooker and he explained the basic principles of a solar cooker with great ease. The school has a free coaching center for poor students. This is to help the children in different schools with their lessons. It also arranges science classes every Saturday. Local volunteers and Prof. Arijit Roy from Preseidency College, Kolkata visit the school once a month in this regard. At present each student contributes Rs 2 every week. Since the instruments are very expensive, the school needs money to continue this program.

2 .Vocational Program: At present the school has a very strong vocational training program for local women. They are mainly focusing on tailoring and fabric painting. They are also involved in making different food items (pickles, bori etc). I suggested that they also start knitting wool. All the 22 students in this program are women. Although the program was free last year, this year the school has implemented a admission charge of Rs 50 for the courses. I personally find this a sensible move. There are three tailoring classes every week, from 3.00 - 6.00 pm. It is a 10 month course. The school holds one class every Saturday, where fabric painting is taught.

The tailoring classes were going on when I arrived there. Thus I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to the students and the teacher. The backgrounds of the students are very diverse. They include school goers, school dropouts, working mothers with their children. The students initially start with the hand sewing and then learn to sew on the machine. The school is trying to establish a "self-employed group" with the help of West Bengal Govt.

3. Monovikas Kendro: The school has a center for the mentally and physically challenged children, established by Nirmal Sengupta's cousin several years ago. This center is a sub-unit of a school in Kolkata and is mainly funded by them. The center arranges for weekly health check-up for the local people. The center has two formally trained teachers, Sajeda Mondol and Samsuddinda. It was really inspiring talking to them. Sajeda Mondol was Nirmal Sengupta's student. After completing her bachelor's degree, she is now a full time-employee in Manovikas Kendro. Their goal is to bring these students into the mainstream education. I have talked about their work to the Welfare Society in Hooghly, a school in association with VSEI. They plan to get in touch with them.

4.Working mothers: The school is located in a moderately developed place and there are a good number of working mothers. The school has a center for taking care of their children. The mothers usually leave their kids in the morning, before they go to their workplace. The children are provided with food and basic education until their respective mother picks them up in the afternoon. This program is partially supported by the West Bengal Govt.

5.Sanitary mart - The school tries to prepare and install sanitary equipments to the poor people's house. This program is also supported by the Govt.

At present the school has a small library for the children and they are trying to expand it. I feel that the number of books is insufficient and VSEI can do something in this particular aspect. I handed over to them one science book and one science instrument box that I carried from USA. The school gifted VSEI a copy of "Jingyashu" (inquisitive), a magazine, which they had started publishing recently. They were able to collect the cost of publishing the magazine from local shopkeeper's advertisements.

I think that we should provide them some money for the subscription of monthly magazines for stories, science and general education. They already subscribe to a magazine. I believe that the school is in the right track of vocational training program. They are trying out different options. The school is thinking to restart bookbinding, making clay pots, leather materials etc. Due to monetary constraints, the school has no plan to start a computer programme at this point. One volunteer, Monideepadi, is helping them out in that direction. They have asked me to find out whether they can directly sell different handicraft items in USA. VSEI may import some materials from the US and sell them here. So far, they only import greeting cards.

The school also receives personal donations on a regular basis, apart from the financial from the West Bengal Govt, Monovikas Kendra and VSEI. VSEI is now involved with the school for almost 10 years and contribute around $300 annually. I feel that in the long run we need to focus on a few projects and should request VSEI to spend more money in those areas.

At present the main administrative work is being taken care of by Mr. Nimai Dutta. It was a pleasure to talk to him and it seems that he is always critical of their own work and open minded for suggestions. Nirmal Sengupta is the source of inspiration to the school. Everyone calls him "Sir". He lives in the school and at the age of 96 he is very strong mentally. I had a highly enjoyable conversation with him about his personal experiences. Spending around 2 hours in the school, on the way back I was satisfied with myself.