The range of Sangam's activities includes a kindergarten school in Bamhani with 2 classes of 30 children between the age of 3 and 5 from the surrounding villages.
The school has a well-equipped playground with a swing, a slide and a seesaw, and the classroom is provided with charts and a big chalkboard. The monthly fee of Rs. 60 per child covers transportation from home to school and back as well as two daily good quality meals and a school uniform. The school uniforms are made by the young ladies in the tailoring classes and a second school uniform may be purchased for 200 Rupees.
The kindergarten is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and usually the latest of all children arrive at 11 a. m. The day starts with watering all the flowers in the gardens and flower beds surrounding the buildings of the Base Centre. After the plants receive their ‘food', it is breakfast time for the children.
After breakfast, all attention and concentration is turned towards learning. The students, for example, with the aid of nicely illustrated charts, learn the names of animals, vegetables, flowers, trees and body parts as well as numbers and the alphabet. The children not only learn the Marathi words, but their English and Hindi counterparts as well.
Each child has his/her own slate and practices writing the words just learned, often illustrating the word with a picture.
Around one o'clock, the children have lunch and then take a short nap. With the lunchtime meal, a daily supplement of vitamins, iron and calcium is given. Regular health statistics are maintained with each child being weighed and measured monthly together with attendance and sickness records.
The acceptance of the kindergarten in the villages is high and there is not only the demand for more kindergarten places but also several requests have been made for a primary school facility to be run by the Sangam in Bamhani.
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