Mitrataa's Opportunity Box

One of Mitrataa’s core responsibilities is to fill the opportunity gap for our students – research globally shows that one of the core challenges of the poverty trap is the missed opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills. One of the biggest indicators of the learning gap tends to be what happens in school holidays - students from wealthier families tend to visit new places, go to museums and experience other educational enhancement activities while students from less advantaged families tend to stay home not doing much in the holidays. Part of our role is to fill this gap for our students.

The Opportunity Box expands on and underpins in-class education, increasing the range of skills and knowledge of the students and giving them a richer tapestry on which to build.

The National Trust in the UK prepared a list of activities that they recommend all children experience before they finish school. Drawing on this list and localising it for the Nepali context, we have prepared our own Opportunity Box: a list of 15 things which we want all of our students to have experienced before they finish class 10:

1. Visit a museum
2. Visit an art gallery
3. Visit the 7 UNESCO Heritage Sites in Kathmandu Valley
4. Visit a factory
5. Hike for a day
6. Visit a farm and learn where food comes from
7. Visit Kathmandu
8. Make a speech
9. Do something that benefits something else
10. Teach a class on a topic of their choice (run a workshop)
11. Eat in a restaurant
12. Make momos
13. Take a visitor on a tour of something in their local area
14. Learn to swim
15. Go shopping for a new set of clothes they can choose themselves

This week was the annual Panauti Jatra, a 3 day chariot festival. As we have a number of students in Panauti, we decided to celebrate the Jatra with them by combining No.15 from the Opportunity Box with our Financial Literacy Project. Each of the students were given Rs 500 (around A$6.50) to spend at the festival market. They had to buy at least one practical/useful item that they need and the rest of the money could be spent however they chose but they had to plan carefully and make sure they got everything they wanted within their budget. Then they had to come back and show us the calculations for what they bought, the total they spent, and how much money they had remaining. For some of the students, they had never had money to spend themselves before and they had so much fun choosing things. 

We were really impressed with how practical they all are and how good they are at bargaining! For example, Swostika bought an umbrella and raincoat as monsoon season starts this week, Rithika bought a kurtha and some sunglasses, Ashalal bought some underwear, a wallet. some socks and a t-shirt, Uma bought a bra, a t-shirt and a doll keyring. Megha and her sister bought some clothes and then some bubbles which they used to entertain us all for the afternoon!