Back from Bihar and relaxing in Delhi!

Just got back from my field research trip to Jamui in Bihar. I am basically working on an evaluation of a particular education intervention started in Jamui. Since January 2008, the Bihar Education Project, Jamui (BEP) has started Residential Bridge Camps (RBCs) for out-of-school children (i.e. children who have either never been to school or have enrolled or a year or two and dropped out) between the ages of 10-15 years, for the purpose of providing a bridge between their lives as child laborers and the mainstream school system. Given the caste system and the gender bias that exists in India, this intervention has been focused around girls from the so-called lower castes – Schedule Castes (SCs), Schedule Tribes (STs), Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Minorities (or Muslims).
Our goal is to gain a thorough understanding of the entire process of this intervention and its effectiveness in promoting inclusive growth for these girls. We have been given office space in the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in Delhi – an Indian bureaucracy started to enforce the new child rights acts passed by the Government. Thus I get to observe not only the workings of UNICEF but also of Indian bureaucracies in Delhi and Bihar.
Being in Jamui for 10 days, we visited 8 RBCs and each an ever one of those has amazingly bright and intelligent girls who just did not get the chance to get educated. It is these girls who show you the true meaning of the word “struggle”. They literally had nothing and yet all they wanted was education so that they could dream bigger. We also went to several villages to meet the Sarpanch (village head) and the parents of these girls. Additionally, we spoke with several of the officials within the district level to gain an understanding of how the bureaucracy within Bihar works (which is in quite a sad state!).
From what I saw – there is definitely growth and development of the girls but inclusive growth might only be a dream of the policy makers and there is still a huge amount of caste and gender based discrimination that is prevalent mainly amongst the officials occupying the middle level of the bureaucracy (the people at the top and the people as the grassroots seem very clear as to the objectives of the intervention).
On a slightly lighter note – I never thought I would use these words to describe any place in Bihar – but Jamui is absolutely beautiful. It has green field everywhere with a million trees and mountains in the background. The air is amazing fresh and you get to see and play with really cute baby goats!! Also a huge part of Jamui is occupied and controlled by the Naxals (belonging to the communist groups) and thus these areas are sectioned off from any sort of government interventions except education. Hence we were allowed to enter those areas to meet with the children and their parents and we actually interacted with a Naxal commander of the area…which I have to admit was a little exciting!
This is a really very quick picture of my experience so far….there is so much that we have seen and learnt but I will keep those stories for another time J