Gubbacchi

Supported by: Wipro Cares

About Gubbachi

Gubbachi was formed with the sole purpose of working for education of underserved children. The data (or the lack of it) is telling. 84 million children are Out of School in India alone (Census 2011). Further, it is estimated that there are 454 million migrants as per Census 2011 (Mukhopadhyay et al, 2017). This indicates problems of access and retention in education of migrant children. Most children enrolled in government schools in peri-urban areas of Bengaluru are migrants. Migrant children have to overcome learning gaps due to settling time, language and cultural alienation, inflexible curriculum and school schedules, safety concerns by parents for their wards in a foreign environment.

Approach

We work in Government Schools through MOUs with the Department of Education and stakeholder buy-in ensuring access and retention of the child in the education process. We train Gubbachi teachers to respond to the learning needs of the child. We recognize that there are many organizations in the ecosystem, which work for systemic change. However, we also know systemic change takes time. Hence, while the system gears up for change, we ensure learning continuity of current cohorts of children.

Location

Our interventions are located in S4 block of Bengaluru operating primarily in the Doddakanelli cluster in 4 Government Schools and 7 migrant communities.

The Pandemic and Our Work

2020-21, the first year of the pandemic, will be etched in our collective memory. At Gubbachi, we emerged stronger through our spirit to solve some problems one-at-a-time and some as clusters. We jumped into humanitarian aid of food and health almost the very moment the lockdown was declared. It was a crisis that needed all of us to contribute in whichever way we could. Being entrenched in fieldwork at every level, anticipating, recognizing and responding to the communities and children came easy. The team was ready to take on the everyday challenges at every level. Not losing sight of what Gubbachi stands for and our work, the team quickly recognized that our children would be looking into deep learning regression if work did not start on the education front at the earliest. That response stood us in good stead. The interventions have not only stopped regression but also caused progress in learning. The team was quick to recognize the learning needs of children in Grades 4-7 who were not enrolled in any of Gubbachi’s programs. Not just assessing but also rolling out a good quality intervention (School Learning Program) in record time of two months has been possible due to the investment of past 5 years- in creating a shared vision, developing capacity, and communicating the value of interventions.