School visit

Muktangan NGO and Municipal School

One lady, Elizabeth Mehta, had a vision that she could use her 40 years of teaching experience to train 6 women from the lowest socio economic class and have them in turn educate preschool children from their own area. This vision has developed now into Muktangan School which educates children up to grade 5 and has plans to add a grade yearly up to grade 10. Three teachers share a classroom and each has from 8 to 15 students in a group. The teachers get one hour a day with a mentor teacher to plan the following lessons and discuss the needs of their students. These teachers now have a career, the children from these slum areas are getting a great education, and Liz Mehta is seeing her vision being surpassed. I want to tell you more about this school and share a video we all watched. The message here is if you believe in can happen then with hard work and a positive attitude then it probably will.

We spent all day at this school and it is high up on my list of best days in India. We especially enjoyed the singing and dancing in the pre K classes. Wait to you see the video of their British Indian accents and their own slant on singing popular songs like Hokey Pokey. We have another school visit tomorrow to an “elite” school so the comparisons will be interesting.

Karen and I decided to go and visit some home industries this evening where local people make and sell their wares. However, the place the taxi driver took us was not what we intended and we were looking at jewelry around $4000 and silk scarves for not much less! We hailed a taxi and were then taken to the wrong “Taj” hotel and had to get another one back to where we were staying. We have learned in India that people will pretend to know the way when you ask and they will direct you anyway. So far I have taken 3 taxis and never yet got to where I was intending☺