Kindling Young Minds By Lisa Monteiro Nestled in the backyard of a 200-year-old house in Carmona, is a preprimary school that breaks away from the norms. Dr Savia Viegas, writer, social activist and the brain behind a new age nursery school talks to Lisa Monteiro about the importance of developing the identity of children even at the preprimary level.
Q. What is the name of your school? The school goes by the name of Saxttikids. The name sprung up easily when we were trying to create a brand name that would appeal to local people. Q. Where is it situated? It is situated close to Our Lady of Socorro Church on the coastal belt of Carmona in the south of Goa and caters to children from the village as well as its satellite villages. Q. When and why was it initiated? It was initiated in the year 2007. I thought of rolling up my sleeves and plouging back something to the soil that I was born in, instead of grumbling and complaining bout the pathetic scenario around. I was willing to and allow village children to get good grounding in education. Also I am a college professor but I believe no matter where my expertise lies, good preprimary education should be available in villages so that these tiny tots don't have to travel 10-15 kms back and forth everyday. Exhausted little children cannot give best results. Q. What is your main aim as the founder and director of the school. -To provide a service at the doorstep of rural Goa so that little ones don't have to travel. -To help parents who otherwise would be forced to migrate and live in cities. -To provide jobs to local educated women. -To raise the standard in the village. This was a purely selfish motive. I had chosen to give up a lucrative career and living in Mumbai. At the same time I did not want rural setbacks to spoil my life. As the saying goes. If you do not pull people up, they pull you down. Q. How has the response been so far? We began the first day of the incepting year with 14 children and we now have 33. Well anything takes time to grow, but importantly all of us who are involved in the school love it and many parents have chosen to send a second sibling as well. So there you are... Q. Which section of society does the school cater to? We have all strata of children -- a taxi driver's daughter, a sailor's son. Anyone who believes in good education and is willing to pay for it is more than welcome. Q. What's the fee structure like? Per month it's around 650 rupees with additional activity fees of 250 rupees that is inclusive of snacks as well as paints, crayons, colours, and other stationery and crafts. The students however have to buy books themselves. We have two classes: nursery and junior KG. Four teachers and two support staff cater to the kids' needs. Q. What are the different activities followed by the school? Story telling is a tradition that the school follows religiously. In the process we have discovered some delightful storytellers among our students. We also take our students on field trips to museums, churches in Old Goa and for bird watching. Illustrations, singing, spray paintings, wool work are all a part of our regular repertoire. Q. How different is your school? To be creative and to enjoy learning is every child's birthright.'Saxttikids' believes in allowing children full cultural expression. Hence music, art and multiple languages are used when teaching children. We are a polyglot society. Why should we restrict the teaching our young ones to one language and that too a foreign one? Though English is a 'must know' language in the modern society, all will be lost if you do not know your mother tongues-Hindi and Konkani. Q. What future plans do you have for this school? We plan to start senior KG and also to have a play school for those under two years. Soon we will also have violin, guitar and ballet classes for the tots. --------- The article above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 27th August 2008 =====
