A bond strengthened
A grandfather in western Nepal reflects on how a parenting education radio show developed and broadcast with UNICEF support has proved instrumental for him in helping his four grandchildren continue learning during the COVID-19 crisis
Achham, Nepal: When the country went into lockdown towards the end of March 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Lob Bahadur Shahi was very worried about his young grandchildren. Part of his concern was certainly related to keeping them safe from the virus, but the 65-year-old farmer from Kamalbazar Municipality in Achham District in western Nepal was also at a loss as to how to ensure their learning didn’t come to a complete stop while schools remained closed.
“Because the paddy planting season had just started, my sons and daughters-in-law were spending most of their days working on the farm,” he says. “I was the only one at home taking care of the children.”
Lob Bahadur has always placed great value on learning, and it has been his dream to see all his grandchildren educated. “But with schools closed, the children were extremely frustrated and restless – they were running around the house, fighting with each other, damaging things,” he says. “It was frustrating because I had no idea what I could do to keep them productively occupied.”
One day, however, Lob Bahadur got a call from Ramita Shahi, the facilitator at the early childhood development (ECD) center that one of his grandchildren used to attend. She informed him about a new parenting education radio show – Sikdai Sikaundai – that was being broadcast by a local radio station.
Developed by UNICEF and Seto Gurans National Child Development Services in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Center for Education and Human Resource Development and the Nepal Education Cluster, Sikdai Sikaundai seeks to guide caregivers in supporting children’s learning and development at home. The show – currently being aired across the country from over 80 radio stations in Nepali, Bhojpuri and Maithili languages – is aimed at parents and children from more marginalized communities where access to other sources of information might be limited.
Lob Bahadur admits he wasn’t very interested at first. “I generally just listen to the news on the radio,” he says. But Ramita called him again and pressed him to give the show shot. And so, on a quiet Monday evening, he tuned in to Sikdai Sikaundai.
What followed was pleasant surprise. “Within 15 minutes, I’d learned about so many home-based activities I could try with the children that I never thought of before,” he says. Then onwards, Lob Bahadur made it a point to listen to each episode and even convinced his grandchildren to join him. After each new episode, they would then try out the different activities recommended, such as making toys with locally available materials, or working on their language skills.
Lob Bahadur says the show has made a deep impression on him in terms of the role that caregivers play in children’s physical and psychological well-being. He refers to a particular episode featuring psychologist Ganga Pathak that he found very eye-opening. “I felt, after that show, that there were so many things I was ignorant of that could have repercussions in the children’s mental health in the future if I did not change my ways,” he says.
Such epiphanies are the reason why Lob Bahadur has been urging his neighbours and other community members to listen to the show as well.
“It’s helped to strengthen the bond between me and my grandchildren,” he says. “For all the challenges that this crisis has brought, that has been one positive thing to come out of it and I want others to experience that.”
