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Asha Mahatma Gandhi-Montessori Project

Location: Sevagram, India

Website:
Program Established: June 2006
# of Children: 35 Ages Served: 2.6-4

Immediate Needs:

  1. Funds to sponsor willing and able local  residents of the village to receive basic training in Montessori philosophy and pedagogy and if possible, AMI training.
  2. Donations to purchase Montessori materials.
  3. Used materials in good condition.
  4. Funds for child size furniture and shelving.
  5. Trained volunteers to support the project.

 

Contact Person: Grace Musumeci
Contact Information: grace_sevagram@yahoo.co.in
The Asha Mahatma Gandhi Project was started in June 2006 to serve the poorest young children in rural areas of India. The first Casa opened at the Gandhi Ashram with 20 children ages 2.6 to 3 years old. Another 20 students joined the class in 2007, including some with severe disabilities. Grace Musumeci, who founded this program, donates her time to guide the children as well as to train the local women to assist in the classroom.

Her hope is to help establish Montessori Casas in rural India, which means providing the basic materials – hopefully for local tradesmen to use as models to make themselves, and to train the local village women to become teachers.

As the Ashram is open to the public, some of those who visit from either smaller, more isolated villages in Maharashtra itself, or from other parts of India, request that Grace visit them to help set up a Casa in their village also.  In January of 2008 she will go to Bodh Gaya in Bihar, the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, which is one of the most poverty-stricken and violent states in India. A young man who came to the Ashram observed the children and asked for help in setting up a Casa there.

Grace sees this as her gift – to be given the opportunity to help the whole village by giving them the best education we know there is to offer. Eventually her hope is that there will be little Montessori Casas dotted all around India.

In order to see this vision realized, donations are needed to provide training and materials.  Your help would be much appreciated in helping these children who have so many obstacles to their development. When Ghandi was alive he began ‘Nai Talim’ meaning ‘New Education’ which rings so consonantly with Dr. Montessori’s ideas of educational reform.

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