Tour Report on Bidyadharpur-location of Aalo 31, Primary Coaching Home.

On 28^th July’08 Amit Saha Roy & myself left Kolkata by Digha Shalimar Express at 8 AM for Digha to visit Aalo 31, Bidhyadharpur Primary Coaching Home. We opted to go to Bidhyadharpur via Digha because of two reasons. Firstly since we cannot complete the tour in one day we need a lodging facility for overnight stay. This is available in abundance in Digha. Secondly communication to Bidhyadharpur can be easily availed from Digha instead of planning to go there directly from Kolkata. Keeping these two factors in mind we had planned our tour. We reached Digha on 28/7 at 11:30 AM. On that very day we planned to visit the centre from Digha on road. The location of the Home is near to Chandanpore Hospital which is approximately 20 to 25 K.M. from Digha. There are two/three different roads leading to Chandanpore Hospital. One is via Depal , another is via Deulihat. On our way to Aalo 31 we decided to go via Depal. Now in order to reach Depal first you need to travel to Ramnagar from Digha which is approximately 12 to 15 Kms distance . From there we have to go to Depal. Till Depal we could travel along paved road. From Depal we had to use unpaved, clay roads to reach Chandanpore Hospital. The distance of Chandanpore Hospital from Depal is approximately 7 to 8 KM. From Depal to Chandanpur Hospital it is indeed a difficult journey. Since we had hired a car from Digha we did not face any major problem but if any one wishes to travel using public facilities it will be extremely difficult.. Practically there is no proper existing transport facility which connects Chandanpore Hospital from Depal.

Ultimately after traveling along a difficult terrain we were able to reach Mr. Payra’s residence in Bidyadharpur. Probably the news that people from Kolkata are coming to visit Bidyadharpur had sparked an element of interest among the local village community. So we found that many people had gathered in front of the residence of Mr. Payra. Among them many elderly people were also present. I was happy to find that local village community is expressing such tremendous interest in Lily’s work. One thing is for certain that if Lily enters in Bidyadharpur with any major project in future it is almost certain that local people will surely support & cooperate with us in every act of ours. From my conversation with the village elders I am almost certain that they are extremely pleased that Lily has expressed interest in setting up a Coaching centre in their village. They seemed to be tired of hearing unfulfilled promises but then our small step in the village with the objective to serve the poor & downtrodden community has been able to acquire their appreciation.

Bidyadharpur is indeed a remote village ( Prasad da , you will be able to remember Dumni in Bankura). It is almost like that. Electricity has not yet reached in the village. The road leading to the village is however paved. This work has been done by the Government under Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojna. The home is at present conducted in a small room in the residence of Mr. Payra. The room as I understand is not adequate to accommodate the total strength. I made a remark on that. Mr. Payra told me that he will shift the home to the roof. I told him that we can not allow our home to run under open sky. It must be run under a roofed facility. Hearing that Mr. Payra told that he will try to shift the home in the adjacent room once it is complete. Another disadvantage of the current accommodation is that , the room has no windows at all. So even if the coaching is held in the morning I suspect that there will not be adequate light for the students to read. Couple of Charts & blackboard are found to be hanging on the wall. The condition of the board is very poor. It needs to be replaced immediately. A signboard

( which is prepared by writing on paper & then fixing it on a wooden/ tin platform was found to be hanging outside the home. I think I have to talk to Mr. Payra about the signboard in detail. Probably it needs to be replaced. Without windows the room appeared to be too stuffy. This may also happen because the main door was nearly blocked by the people of the village during the visit. They were extremely eager to witness how an inspection is carried out. After my inspection was over I talked to the elderly people of the village community. I introduced myself before them & also narrated briefly the activities of the foundation. They were pleased that a coaching home of this kind has been set up in their village. Many of them expressed the need to set up more in order to ensure that majority of the poor community gets benefited. Some of the village people as well as Mr. Payra asked me if the size of the home can be increased to 20 from 10. This he told because many guardians are eager to admit their children in the home for ensuring quality education. But due to restricted size he is unable to admit them. I explained to Mr. Payra the rationality behind keeping the coaching size restricted to 10 kids. I further told him that the enrollment capacity cannot be increased suddenly. Firstly we need to review the performance of the students after one year of study. If we find that our efforts have been successful , the student are putting up an improved performance compared to the one with we they got admitted in the home then only we can count on the prospect of setting up another home there. But this decision is the sole prerogative of Lily Dallas & Lily India GB. I told them that I am not the person who can assure them on this. The villagers also expressed interest in SMILE Scholarship Programme. Our ex-candidate Tapas Jana is a resident of the same village. I told them that since Tapas has been awarded Scholarship so anybody else who is worth deserving can also apply for the same. But whether he/she will be selected or not that depends on few criteria which will be judged by our Smile Administrator in Dallas.

Now I briefly want to narrate about the students of the Home. The kids who have been admitted in the home are students of three primary schools basically. These are Chandanpur Primary School., Bidyadharpur Primary School & Nivedita Missionary Nursery School. In all 12 students have been admitted in the Home out of which 7 are girls & 5 are boys. From Chandanpur Primary School 8 kids, 3 from Bidyadharpur Primary School & 1 from Nivedita Missionary study in the home. The Home is composed of students from classes III & IV. 5 students study in class III & 7 in class IV.

9 students ( 6 from class IV & 3 from class III) were interviewed. They were asked questions from Bengali, Science, History & Geography. Some students were also asked to perform small arithmetic problems from their text books. Overall the performance was pretty average. Probably the suddenness of the incident have frightened the children. Still the performance is my opinion has to be picked up. In order to ensure that the kids perform better from what they have done in their last annual examination both the teacher as well as the students have to be more laborious. I expect that Lily’s efforts will be truly rewarded.

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