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Can you improve the life of a working child? That's a tough thing to realise. Can you make a working child forget his problems for one day? That must be possible. And we made it.
We are a group of three, trainee teachers from Zeeland in the Netherlands, Annefien, Suzanne and Matty and are in our last year of Bachelor's in primary education. We arrived in New Delhi in the first week of February, to intern with Pratham Delhi Education Initiative, which is part of our final assessments, for three months.
Till now we have seen many projects of Pratham in Delhi and Jaipur. One such project was in Azadpur, a fruit and vegetable wholesale market, in North Delhi. The visit to this project moved us a lot, a high percent of child labours live in this area. Most of them work at the wholesale market.
Pratham, in Azadpur, is trying to bring all child labours within the education net. To suit the need of the working children here Pratham runs its classes at different times of the day. This gives the children the opportunity to go to school at their own convenience. The children are eager to learn, but they are unable to attend classes every day because of their work commitments.
When we saw these children in the Pratham classes, we were moved and wanted to do something for them that they do not usually do. The three of us after much discussion decided to take a group of children on an excursion and accordingly approached the Pratham people to get their approval.
 Now the difficult part was to organize the trip, all kinds of questions kept coming to our mind. For instance, how many children could we take? From which class? Where to go? The mode of transport to be used? What kind food and drinks could we serve to the children? What kind of Games could we play with them? Above all, how much would it cost to organize the trip?
It took us about 10 days to think through and organize this excursion. Naseem, a Pratham Health Co-ordinator, helped us in our quest. Naseem actually runs a Pratham Health programme in Azadpur and knows the area well. He selected the children, 56 in all and about 15 teachers, for the day long trip out. We roughly divided the children in groups of 11 with 3 teachers to look after each group. Each group was assigned a colour and we made name tags of each child in the colour of the group. There were 5 groups in all. This was done to help the teachers to keep an eye on their respective groups.
Rahul helped us with the booking of the transport, one bus and two mini buses, together with the procurement of the food for the children. The water and the cola was Naseem's responsibility.
And now the most important question: What to do and where to go? We decided to take a trip by metro, then eat lunch and play some Dutch games in the lawns around the Indian Gate. Followed by a visit to the Rajghat, the national memorial of Mahatma Gandhi. The d-day was finalized for the 25th of March.
Two days prior to the excursion day, we met up with Rahul and Naseem to discuss each and every aspect of the trip minutely. We were so excited of the prospect of doing something concrete and positive for the children.
25th of March 2004
The day started very early for us, because we had to go to Azadpur by motor rickshaw. We left our guesthouse at 7.30 am. It took us more than an hour to reach Azadpur. The rickshaw had a flat tyre and we had to search for another rickshaw. Finally we arrived at the Azadpur office.
We were 30 minutes late but that is nothing in India. Time is relative. Seventy-three children, out of whom 17 unregistered children were waiting in the early morning near the Azadpur office. Especially for this day they wore their most beautiful clothes and had brushed their hair very carefully.
 We had earlier planned to leave Azadpur at 8.30 AM, but because of a various unforeseen problems we had to delay our departure to 9.30 AM. The buses came late, the empty bottles of water still needed to be filled, a few teachers arrived late etc.
The trip by bus to the metro was in any case a big happening. Probably this was the first time the children were that far from home, so they could see much new things through the window and sang a lot of songs. In the bus the teachers gave the name cards that the children had to hang around their necks. A mini crisis arose, the 17 additional children led to a shortage of name tags. Luckily we were carrying some extra cards with us. This is a good tip for next time: always take some extra materials with you!
We have to say the organisational capacity of the teachers was very good. Every teacher, as agreed before, had his own duty. That's very important, because otherwise you'll loose track of a big group of children. The children were also very orderly: for example they walked properly two by two in the queue.
The children were so excited to go by metro. It was the first time for them and also for the teachers. Everything took such a long time: time to get the tickets, to go in through a special gate and enter the train. Everything was new and they all seemed very happy. It was nice just to look at the children's faces and to see the amazement. It was very beautiful to see that the children could read everything around them. They even noted the names of the stops on their hands with a pen! It's a perfect situation for bringing the knowledge in practice. They were so proud that they could do this!
Meanwhile our schedule was overrun by more than one and a half hour. We planned to arrive round 11.30 AM at Indian Gate, but it was 13.00 PM when we finally reached. The traffic was also one big mess. The problem was, we had to meet up with the person who was supplying the lunch and the photographer at 12.00 noon at Indian Gate.
In the bus we were singing songs in Hindi and in English so we had a good time together. When we arrived at Indian Gate, we changed our plans. We saw the children were hungry, so we skipped the tour round Indian Gate and had lunch immediately, instead. The lunch was perfect: there was plenty for everyone (also for those who were not registered) and the children enjoyed it very much.
 Also the games had to be altered from what was planned. We noticed that the children also had much fun by playing with a ball and playing the games they were familiar with. So we decided to skip our games to let them play without disturbing them.
The lunch followed by the games finished at 3 pm and we had to decide what to do next, we were already running behind schedule. Next, we took photographs of every group with their teachers. (We want to frame the photographs and give one to every child and to the teachers also).
After drinking some coke, the children were delighted to play in the playground, played there for over an hour. We sensed that it was all too much for one day for the children, they were visibly tired. A trip to Raj Ghat did not seem so sensible. We decided to call it a day.
It was such a wonderful day and it made us very happy to see the joy and happiness of the children. It was only a pity that we can't speak Hindi. We needed a translator to talk with the children. Only a few could speak a little bit English. We will always think of the children and remember this day for a long time.
After a few weeks we will visit Azadpur again, to give the children the pictures and see them again.
In fact we had originally decided to give a present to every child, but because of the extra 17 we had to abort the idea, we did not have sufficient things for all 73. So again a tip for the next time: be sure that every child is registered!!
The cooperation between Naseem, the teachers and us was very good. Each of us had a distinct responsibility: we took the initiative and made the schedule, Naseem was the link between the teachers and us, the teachers were the ones who carried out the instructions.
One thing frightened us after the event: the total amount of money that was spent. We had thought that 5000 rupees would be sufficient, but the cost actually came to 14000 rupees.
As conclusion we want to say the following to improve any future excursions:
When fixing the time schedule, it's better to overestimate than to underestimate the (travelling) time. There will always be a delay somewhere.
A flexible attitude is needed: the emphasis of this day is the fun of the children, not to rigidly stick to the schedule.
Carry extra materials, food, etc. with you than too less, to avoid annoying surprises.
Children enjoy the little things and can entertain themselves very well, so there's no need to organise big and intricate activities.
This day was sponsored by Novib. We felt the cost to organize this was slightly on the higher side. The children can just enjoy as much if they are taken to a near by park to play games, which will cost much less.
On the whole it was a great day for us, we really felt contented seeing the glee and happiness of the children.
Matty, Suzanne and Annefien.. THE DUTCH INTERNS
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