Hoisting the flag at the Giri Nagar centre last week was a walk down memory lane. This is where it all began way back in the winter of 2000. In those days we had just acquired a small mud jhuggi across the street where the flag was hoisted and had begun our spoken English classes with a handful of students and a few volunteers. Then sometime later we opened our first class for special needs children at the very spot we hoisted the flag.This happened because a special educator landed on our threshold a few special kids in tow stating that the school they went to had shut their doors and they had nowhere to go. To her question: did we have a special needs class the answer was an immediate yes. It was one of the first deafening whys to be answered. Thus began our special needs class and some of the kids that came to us that cold winter morning are still with us today. Next to it was the first senior secondary class with a handful of class X students preparing for their Boards, the result of a challenge thrown by their Principal who stated that these boys could never clear their Boards. They all did. That was the sum  of Project Why in early 2001!

Unfurling that flag to the singing of the National Anthem by the students of Giri Nagar was a moving movement. Two decades later I was standing at the very spot where the journey began. I was choked with emotion. This was also the place where Manu’s blue plastic chair stood and where I shared many meals with him, sitting on a red stool and partaking of the morsels of flat bread dipped in dal that he so lovingly preferred. To me it was manna from the Gods.

We have come a long way from that winter in 2000. Today we have 6 centres spread across South Delhi, 1200 children in our after school programme, 160 women learning a skill to become financially independent and of course our very special children who have ‘graduated’ from the pavement to their own three room centre. It has been an eventful and rewarding journey, one I am terribly proud of. Quite frankly way back in 2000 I never would have imagined how far we would get. I cannot say it was an easy ride. There were many challenges along the way but somehow we met them all head on. What allowed us to grow and flourish was the network of people from across the world who reached out to us and believed in what we did. My heartfelt gratitude and unconditional love to each one of them.

Today we stand at crossroads again. We need to raise funds for two of our biggest centres as we lose their funding in March 2020. And though it looks like mission impossible at this moment, I know deep in my heart that a miracle is on its way. We simply need to hold on to our dreams tight and  walk the road less travelled as we have always done.

Standing on that roadside unfurling the flag I could feel the presence of Manu and the pledge I made to him to honour his life by never giving up.