What We Do..
Dhrubotara consists of two small primary schools in the villages of Makhalpur and Joihoripur in Dhaniakhali Block of Hugli District, West Bengal, India. Many children are of the Shobbor / Sabbar Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, and other ST communities such as Mudi, Maheli and Santal. Many of the children are ‘first generation’ learners.
We began in 2001 at Makhalpur and in 2008 at Joihoripur, to support children of the Shobbor / Sabbar community (Scheduled Tribe) and other local children of poor families with lively and meaningful education. Dhrubotara gives pre-primary (PP) and Primary Education free of cost, and gives tuition to its students when they move on to the Government High School, for which the students pay only 20% of the cost.
Dhrubotara has 60+ children in its pre-primary and primary sections, and about 60 ‘high school going’ students receiving tuition.
We are situated in a rural area about 70kms north west of Kolkata, the state capital of West Bengal.
Dhrubotara students learn dancing and singing. At the end of the short Winter season a show called ‘Shishu Mela’ takes place for parents and the community.
Older students learn computer skills. We currently have two working laptops. Smart phones (known locally as big-glass mobiles) have become common among the community and all our teachers have one. As a result internet communication skills have become widely known, with all the positives and negatives associated with the technology.
Typically parents of our children are themselves first generation learners, landless and live by casual labour on the land of others. Many men of our communities now work, at least in part, in work other than field labour, such as driving a tractor or small van, construction labour and the gold jewellery industry. Leavers of Dhrubotara are increasingly moving into new types of work (mostly boys). Several have become apprenticed in building and electrical trades, and more go away from home to be trained in the intricate work of making and assembling gold jewellery. They work for Bengali employers who have workshops in distant places such as Hyderabad, Mumbai, Gujarat etc. The employers prefer local Bangla speaking lads whom they can train and control. The boys can earn much more than at home and save a good amount after a few years.
Friends of Dhrubotara (FoD) is a small registered charity in the UK which exists to to support, monitor and fund this project. A representative of FoD visits the project every year.
Dhrubotara currently receives its funds from FoD via a small NGO called Athmik based in the local municipality of Bandel. The NGO is registered to receive foreign donations so the funds spent at Dhrubotara arrive legally and are subject to official accounting procedures. The secretary of the NGO is Mr Sanjay Pal who is a helpful and co-operative person. He visits Dhrubotara when necessary and ensures timely payments of wages and other expenses.
FoD receives donations from several persons in the UK, a small charity in Australia called Uthana (To Raise Up), and the Bill Cook Foundation in the USA. We thank all these persons and organisations for their long term support of Dhrubotara.
We seek new donors (regular or one off) so that we can cope with the local inflation rate of around 7% and support a slowly rising number of students.
Dhrubotara is a low cost project bringing meaningful education to children from very underprivileged communities. The teachers are highly motivated and live close to the children. We have understood that ‘Education’ is ‘Activity’, not buildings and facilities. Education happens here in our two small schoolrooms, on house verandahs, the roof of a village house and under a tree by a roadside. We aim for the work to be sustainable for many years to come.
