We initiated our first community-based project at Humgaon on Dec 16, 2021.
Humgaon in Satara district, Maharashtra with a population of around 1800 is primarily an agricultural village.
A group of children of various ages are part of the project. Trupti Salunkhe, a class 9 student of the Zilla Parishad school in the village and daughter of a goatherd is the coordinator.
The children meet on Sundays making time from farm-work and household chores.
The community’s pain-points that the children identified included alcohol abuse, tobacco use, use of harsh language by elders, bad roads and road accidents. Following a discussion on each of these issues they decided to work on averting accidents.
Given the fact that children couldn’t access the internet because of lack of devices we initiated group discussions on questions like, which are the accident zones in the vicinity? What kind of vehicles were usually involved in accidents? Which are some of the major and minor accidents that have taken place? When and where have they occurred.
Discussions were followed by presentations.
Once we managed to procure a calling tab, the children got started on research. What are the various ways to address the issue of road accidents? What are the pros and cons of employing these for their purpose? What would they like to do to avert road accidents and why?
Finally, the children decided on putting up signage.
