The Sundarbans Project
The Sundarbans project is one of our newest projects. This project is located in the Sunderbans region of India. The idea of the project was initiated last year when Kallol Gosh, Director of Samaj Unnayan Kendra*, met with Ann Moideen, CEO and President of Ann Foundation. Both of them discussed potential teaching English opportunities for children in the slums of the Sundarbans. We were able to meet up with Nilanjana Chakrabarti, project coordinator of the Sundarbans Project, and discuss more about this exciting project.
Sundarbans is located is a remote part of West Bengal with limited access to good schools and scarcity for teachers. Most of the teachers do not want to teach due to its location; however, with the power of technology, Ann Foundation opens a world of opportunities to children in the rural areas.
Nilanjana’s team started the ESL classes in July 2011. Currently with four volunteers they are teaching 50 boys and girls.
The children are attending local schools and are well behaved. They are excited about the new concept of learning via Skype. Their parents are very excited about these classes, sometimes out of curiosity they participate in the class.
In the next five years, the Sundarban team plan to set up a computer lab which will help the children in learning computer basics.
Plans are underway to improve the infrastructure so that the volunteers will be able to provide classes for an additional fifty students.
Currently, the volunteers are teaching the children conversational English. The Sundarban curriculum will continue to develop further in order to improve the children’s English in school.
There is a lot of potential in this very ambitious project. Please feel free to leave any comments and let us know what else you would like to see featured on this blog.
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* Samaj Unnayan Kendra is an NGO based in West Bengal. For more information please visit: http://www.aidprojects.org/ngos-edit.aspx?cmd=0&login=guest&id=313
Sunderbans is located on the southern tip of West Bengal, India. Sundarban has a population of over 4 million. It is the single largest source of forest produce in India. The Sundarbans Tiger Reserve has the highest tiger population in the world. The major attractions of Sundarban are the wildlife. For more information on Sunderban please visit the Sunderban project page on the Ann Foundation website.
I stumbled upon this blog in the course of random browsing. I also saw that you are looking for volunteers for South India with knowledge of Tamil. I don’t know Tamil but Bengali is my mother tongue. It seems that this project is also similar in nature to that being run for South India. If possible I would like to volunteer for this project and/or similar projects running in Kolkata such as the one being run by Samaritan Mission. I shall be thankful if you can put me in touch with somebody locally so that I can explore possible opportunities with him/her.