Street Fort Kochi
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perhaps a unique characteristic of Fort Kochi is the sheer quietness of the streets which is entirely different to every other street in India
Alleppey cruising Postcard
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1950s look to this bright view over the bows of a houseboat in Kerala’s backwaters
Kerala School Tours
The Peninsula On-line: Qatar’s leading English DailyKerala offers school tours to tourists
By John Mary
Pre-school centres, attended mostly by kids from underprivileged sections, are the latest theme on offer for discerning tourists to Kerala.
Travellers might run into kids at single-teacher, thatch-roofed kindergartens that dot Kerala villages and towns. There is roughly one pre-school centre (anganwadi) for every thousand children in the three-to-six age group.
But it was no such chance encounter for a batch of students from the UK who spent a whole day at two pre-school shelters at the Varkala beach resort, some 40 km from here, this week.
The visit has been the offshoot of a rare linkage between tourism industry and a leading public health NGO, collaborating to improve living standards of some 3,000 children in at shoreline hamlets in Varkala.
Nutritionist CR Soman who heads the NGOs, Prochild and Health Action by People, and KC Chandrahasan of Kerala Travels said: “We will arrange visits by well-meaning tourists to these centers and they will spend time with the children, as the Priory students from Lincolnshire did, singing nursery rhymes with them and sharing food. The tour operator will pass on benefits to anganvadis to improve facilities”.
Village councils, officials of the Integrated Child Development Services and social workers are also involved in the project. Under the project, Lullaby@Varkala, a glass of milk and vegetables are now being provided to children three days a week to supplement the Government-sponsored food and two pairs of uniform. Prochild looks after the visitors, charging $ 22 for a day while the local community serves lunch at $ 3.5 per head.
“By facilitating interaction between tourists and locals and by channeling the revenue for the uplift of children, women and economically weaker sections of society, Lullaby seeks to create a symbiotic relationship between tourism and the populace,” Dr Soman said.
What provoked this critical intervention was a survey conducted by Health Action by People in the anganvadis in the area which showed 50 per cent of them provide only benches as seating facility and 18 per cent provide chairs. At 15 per cent centres kids sat on the floor and the rest had miscellaneous seating arrangements.