Project Why

MITHU'S SCHOOL FUNDRAISER

Because it makes
that little
difference

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Transformed lives of 10000 children and women

Go to @ProjectWhy2000

MISSION

Creating Spaces To Dream, Learn And Transform Lives

Project WHY’s vision of a desirable world is where all children have quality education and are able to complete their schooling years. Where all the children have the support to build their skills and have a voice. We also believe in gender justice and self-reliance in improving socio-economic status through skill enhancement.

What We Do

WE EDUCATE

Quality education to underprivileged children.

WE EMPOWER

Skill Development programs for women and youth.

WE EMPLOY

People from the community and our alumni.

Life time Commitment to OKHLA centre

Birth of Okhla centre from a garbage dump to a fully constructed space was an immense struggle. This journey of 23 years was made possible with the integrity and commitment of the team, who has ever since, tirelessly fought unparalleled battles and won for the sake of children’s transformation through education.

Witnessing this success story and moved my the unflinching sincerity and hard work of the educators, Mr. Adish & Asha jain committed funds to Okhla centre for life time. Project WHY team is forever grateful to them for their support which will help to give wings to children’s dreams. Their commitment is not just funds. They have committed themselves to the CAUSE of transformation through education. They listen to the routines, ideas, initiatives, plans, achievements and challenges of educators and children. They guide, mentor, encourage, motivate and inspire Project WHY team and students to challenge new heights, expand their lives and achieve their goals.

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CENTRES

Project WHY runs 5 after school support centres for underprivileged communities in South Delhi and 1 center in Dehradun reaching out to 1200 children every year.

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Latest News

Making memories

We have completed 24 years of working in the communities to transform lives through education and skill development. The journey had been beautiful, satisfying yet extremely challenging. We feel grateful that our initiative could lead to a huge shift in the lives...

Project Why goes online!

The wait is over! On 22nd November, the inauguration of our digital studio, “Project WHY online” with the help of Adish and Asha Jain Foundation. It was very kind of them to offer us all the things we needed for our studio. The online classes will allow us to give...

Into the sunset

2024 was the year I finally took my first step into the sunset. There has been an elephant in the room for a long time now. True we attempted to address it several times, but they were always half-hearted attempts as there was always more pressing short-term issues...

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Impact Stories

Manu

Two Angels landed in my life without any warning and changed my life forever. The first was Manu. Manu was the kind of being you pass on the street and never look at. To many he would be just a beggar who seemed deranged and bedraggled. He roamed a street I passed regularly. I often wondered what could have got him there, but it was a fleeting thought that disappeared in a trice. But one fateful day the heart...

Utpal

In March 2003, the day after Holi, we learnt that the 'little boy next door' had fallen in a boiling pot and, was believed to be dead. We barely knew him, as the family had shifted to Giri Nagar a few days earlier. We felt sorry for the baby, and went on with our lives A few days later, we heard that the baby was not dead, and was back from hospital. When we saw him, we were shocked. A little bundle swathed in...

The Boarding School

UTPAL, BABLI, ADITYA, VICKY, MEHER, MANISHA, YASH Like all else at Project Why the boarding school project began as an answer to a deafening why. In the summer of 2006 Utpal found he was without a home as his mother had to be admitted in a rehab urgently and the 'father' stole all he could from their minute home and vanished. Utpal needed a safe house and the answer was a good boarding school. He joined school at...

Heartfix Hotel

SPONSORING HEART SURGERIES FOR THOSE MOST IN NEED> True Project Why is first and foremost an education support programme but when seeing with your heart is its watchword then it takes no time to widen your horizons. Answering every Why that comes our way has been our endeavour and what can be a more deafening why than the cry of a helpless parent in search of support to repair her child's broken heart. And when...

Sanjay Padiyar: From camps to fashion Ramps

Sanjay’s story starts with a camp of the Lohars of Maharana Pratap, which has a longstanding relationship with Project WHY. The Lohars (ironsmiths) are a nomadic Indian tribe from Rajasthan (Chittorgarh), known to repair arms and shoe horses. One of their camps, containing 30 families, was located close to Project WHY Govindpuri centre. The sight of the Lohar children running and playing amongst the traffic light...

ANITA: The Power to say ‘No’

Anita’s relationship with Project WHY started in 2002 when she was a young girl studying in Class 3. Her father comes from Bihar and moved to Delhi in the late 80s to look for education. Due however to financial problems, he was forced to start working in the nearby factory at an early age and settled in the Giri Nagar area. In 2004, with Anita in Class 6, her father, the family’s sole earner, was told that there...

Geeta – A Girl Uninterrupted

Under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, passed in 2009, a free and compulsory education is guaranteed for all children aged between six and fourteen. The most recent figures for primary school enrolment in India stand at a seemingly impressive 98 per cent. But going to school is a very different thing from receiving a quality education. Those monitoring progress on the sustainable development goal of achieving...

Gyanti Devi – A stitch in time

Born to a poor family in Bihar, Gyanti Devi never had the opportunity to learn as a child. Soon after her marriage, her husband, who is severely handicapped, required treatment. This meant moving her life and her two children to Delhi in 2006, where they lived on rent in the village of Madanpur Khader. The area houses mostly migrant families and has a high dropout rate from government schools as well as issues of...

Bindaas Babli

When Babli first came to Project WHY in 2004, she was a bright-eyed, feisty girl; what some Indians would call Bindaas, meaning carefree and confident. She loved books and seemed to always have a smile. It took Project WHY’s resource persons some time to realize that every breath she drew was an effort. Babli had a hole in her heart from birth and needed corrective surgery. Her family was unable to come up with the...

Shehnaz: In pursuit of education

Whilst literacy is essential to breaking social barriers, the problems faced by Muslim women in India extend beyond this. A quality, broad education is required to combat the issues of poverty and political marginalization faced by these girls, and it is essential that parents encourage this. It has been observed that after the first few years of the primary education afforded to the Muslim girl, one of two things...

Munna: Passion for Life

Indian society continues to treat disability with indifference, pity or revulsion. Low literacy, school enrolment and employment rates are making mentally disabled people among the most excluded in Indian society. These people are deterred from taking an active part in most families or even communities. Moreover, there is a stigma attached to children with disabilities, especially in rural India, and often even...

Sehroonisha – Breaking Barriers

Muslim women are among the most educationally disenfranchised, economically vulnerable, and politically marginalized group in India. Their poor socio-economic status reflects a lack of social opportunity that, though not a feature exclusive to Muslim women, is exacerbated by their marginal status within an overall context for most Indian women. Muslim women in India have a low literacy rate compared to the...

Priya – Hungry for Education

Priya is a 5-year-old girl who lives on the Yamuna Floodplain. Her parents, like the majority of those living on the plain, have no skills other than farming. Priya lives with her parents, two brothers and two sisters. Nobody in the family has received any education, as the expectation is that they will join the family farming business. As soon as they are of age, they will learn to harvest vegetables, which their...

Meher – With a little Help from Our Friends

At the time of this photo, in January 2009, Meher was three years old and lived in Khader, near the outskirts of New Delhi. Her father was a migrant worker who came to New Delhi to work part of the year, and her family spent the rest of the year in their village in Nepal. When Meher was eight or nine months old, a mosquito net over her bed caught on fire. Miraculously, she survived the terrible burns, but the...