SRINAGAR: Block Employment Resource Centre for Youth (BERCY), a Gram Panchayat based community driven learning pilot funded under UMEED programme of Govt. of J&K and implemented by J&K EDI, Fridayinaugurated ‘Nawnihaal Chathaal’, the first community based pre-school for disadvantaged families at Ratnipora, Pulwama.
According to BERCY, the aim of the community school was to provide “good quality, pre-primary education to children in the age group 3 to 4 years belonging to disadvantaged families.”
“We at Nawnihaal Chathaal aim to create a safe nurturing environment where kids get to explore. They get up and move around and learn the basics of recognizing numbers and letters.37 students in 3 to 4 year age group belonging to disadvantaged families have enrolled in the first batch,” said Afaq Mirza, Resource Person BERCY Center Kakapora Pulwama
The school, according to Mirza, will offer a five day week program.
“It will run Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. with an extended program on Saturday for Parent/Teachers meet and community meetings. The community and mothers will play an important role in the functioning of pre-school,” he said.
Local curriculum in Urdu and Kashmiri has been developed by the BERCY team, he said.
To make the project a success, The BERCY Centre has collaborated with ICDS (Integrated child development scheme) Kakapora so that children of Nawnihaal Chathaal can have access to free healthy nutritious food.

KR Desk