The Chennai Floods of 2015 deeply affected the life of school and college students. Schools were shut, children missed classes, books were washed away and the situation only worsened when exam dates remained the same. Teachers were helpless as they were under pressure to complete portions and children panicked as there was not enough time to prepare for exams.
In this context, Lokalex came up with the ESAB project to help Economically, Socially and Academically backward sections of class X and XII students prepare for their exams. With a lot of research and discussions, it was decided that the children would go though a drill of solving question banks for all subjects. Our research helped understand that the question bank explicitly states the important portions to be covered in order to pass the exam. This helped us formulate a concrete plan to make things easier for the children.
Volunteers were identified to put together a set of questions for all subjects which would help them pass. For each subject a lesson wise ppt was prepared consisting of important questions. It was decided that these ppts will be projected at the communities. A common place was identified, where all children would gather for 2 hours and work together. Volunteers were assigned to each of these centres to supervise and solve doubts during the sessions.
Lokalex identified highly dedicated volunteers who conducted sessions at the Thalir Centre in Adambakkam. Two hour sessions were conducted everyday for Accounts, Maths and English. Lokalex also distributed text books to Law students whose books were washed away in the floods.
Long term plan
The ideology behind ESAB project is to make learning fun, easy and effective. To begin with, our main focus is on class X and XII children for subjects like Math, Science and English.
Videos will be shot for each subject where difficult chapters will be covered in a simple manner to help children understand. These videos will be uploaded on youtube and schools and communities will be provided access to these videos both on youtube and in the form of a pendrive. Children will view these videos at their communities and volunteers will help clearing doubts.