Our partners in Odisha, India, run an innovative education programme teaching children in remote, rural villages in their own language. Before the Multi Lingual Education (MLE) centres were set up, children in these communities struggled to learn in state schools as they didn’t speak the language taught. Now around 700 children are gaining a good grounding in their mother tongue first and are then taught, Odia, which is spoken in state schools. This is giving them a much better start to their education.
The MLE centres have also employed and trained around 50 local people to be their teacher workforce, providing much needed employment. Sania is one of those teachers and works at the Hanumal centre. As a child he attended school up to grade 10, but was unable to complete his exams due to difficulties at home. He was working in agriculture when the MLE team approached him and asked if he would like to be trained and teach in the local MLE centre. After a tricky beginning, Sania is now a confident teacher and an advocate for the way the MLE centres teach. His leadership skills mean he also undertakes training for the other MLE teachers and has been selected to be part of a team reviewing the MLE curriculum and teaching materials.
Sania’s story shows how the MLE centres we support not only change the lives of the children but also changes the wider community with employment, education and training.