#IAmPratham: How Community Instructor Mobiliser, Harish navigates challenging paths to bring education to Thachi

The terrain might be precarious and the weather unpredictable, but that hasn’t stopped 26-year-old Community Instructor Mobiliser, Harish from travelling 10-12 km by foot to bring education closer to Thachi and its nearby areas.

Harish joined Pratham in 2022 as part of the Early Years Programme to raise awareness about the importance of developing a strong learning environment for children and has since gone from strength to strength as a Community Instructor Mobiliser.

As part of his role, Harish engages with children from the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) classrooms in play-based activities to ready them for school so they can recognise and understand the syllabus better later on. This maximises their learning potential and develops a strong foundation for future success in education.

A core part of the ECCE Programme is engaging with parents on how to support their children’s learning needs. Initially, Harish faced a lot of challenges when approaching mothers in the community, with many struggling to find time around responsibilities at home and work to go through learning exercises with their children.

Many mothers were also unsure of what learning support their children would benefit most from and were wary of talking to Community Instructor Mobilisers they didn’t know about the issue. But Harish was slowly able to gain their trust and assure them that through his guidance and support from teachers, parents are able to be a key ingredient to their children’s learning success.

Harish now holds regular meetings with mothers and provides tools and support to enable them to help their children learn at home. There are different mothers groups in each village Harish visits and he assigns them tasks to do with their children each week. He follows up with them the next week to understand how they were performed and where children may need additional support.

Pratham’s Early Years Programme builds a strong foundation among children in their pre-school and early grades which is only achieved with the support of mothers, teachers and volunteers in the community. Carrying forward this mission is Harish and many others like him.

Watch Harish’s, “Day in the Life of a Pratham Hero” below to learn more about Pratham’s work and how our heroes behind the scenes are changing the lives of countless children.

Your support can pave the way for more children like those in Harish’s care to experience the transformative power of learning. By making a donation to Pratham today, you’ll enable us to reach even more children and young people with life-changing learning programmes like the Early Childhood Care and Education Programme.

Make your donation today and change a child’s life!