Stories

Manu

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...

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Utpal

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...

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The Boarding School

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...

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Heartfix Hotel

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...

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Sanjay Padiyar: From camps to fashion Ramps

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,...

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ANITA: The Power to say ‘No’

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...

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Geeta – A Girl Uninterrupted

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...

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Gyanti Devi – A stitch in time

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...

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Bindaas Babli

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...

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Shehnaz: In pursuit of education

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...

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Munna: Passion for Life

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...

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Sehroonisha – Breaking Barriers

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...

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Priya – Hungry for Education

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,...

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Meher – With a little Help from Our Friends

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...

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Naresh Sir, with Love

Naresh Sir, with Love

Project WHY opened its first spoken English class for secondary students in 2001 in Giri Nagar. It was the same time that Naresh had just completed his Bachelor’s degree in Arts and was looking for a job. He was a whizz mathematician and loved to teach, and to fulfill...

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