Evening School in Koliyonkulam, Tamil Nadu, India

HELP Trust started the Evening School in Koliyonkulam in the fall of 2007 and today we have 42 students in the program. It was not easy to achieve this level of attendance! We met a lot of resistance from the guardians of the children. Most of the guardians were not interested in sending their children to school and instead wanted them to help with domestic work and to bring more income to the family. But after persevering we began to see results. Slowly almost half of the guardians became interested in educating their children. They showed their support by actively participating in the parents' meetings. Visits to people's houses showed that they were happy with what we are doing. Community involvement is critical to the success of our project. We are now starting to see this involvement increase and the positive impact it has on the project. The children love the activity-based training, games and life skills we offer at the school. We are trying to further develop our curriculum to expand on the possibilities available with this type of education. We measure our success by the new-found confidence and hope we see in the children faces. The children understand the importance of education and can see its lasting and positive impact through roll play and other experiential learning activities we offer.