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 you help repair one, it did not take long for others to follow!

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 caught the attention of Project WHY. In 2005, The Project WHY Lohar Centre began, offered a crèche and primary school support for the children. Though the Lohar Centre no longer exists, Project WHY continues to employ people from this community.

Sanjay Padiyar, was one of seven children in the Padiyar family residing in the Lohars camp. Like his forefathers, Sanjay seemed destined to become a blacksmith. However, it soon became apparent that Sanjay’s dreams were much bigger. Having joined Project WHY classes, he finished his schooling. Through the recommendation of his sister, Project WHY employed Sanjay as a resource person. Sanjay was a primary teacher, and took the responsibility to teach at Project WHY for five years. His gentle ways and boundless patience made him a great favorite with the children. Despite his progress, he still took showers on the roadside, convinced that people like him could not transform their lives.

A French filmmaker, Camille Ponsin, visiting Project WHY in 2009, and maked a documentary on Sanjay’s life – Bollywood boulevard: From the Slums to
the Spotlights (AndanaFilms). Sanjay revealed his true dream on camera. “I want to be on the stage of the world. A model,
a Bollywood star”. It was not to be films, but that documentary led Sanjay Padiyar to the fashion ramp. In 2010, Sanjay walked the ramp for a top designer, Narinder Kumar, at the Lakme Fashion Week. In June 2011, Sanjay walked for Agnès B at her Paris Show, and has become a “poster child of rags to riches”.
Sanjay is living his dream and the showers on the street side seem like a distant memory. He continues to model, and has also now opened his own gym. He has become a beacon of hope to his community who hope to follow in his footsteps and achieve their dreams.

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 was no work in the factory and told to take a two month ‘break.’ Whilst her mother had previously devoted her life to running the house, she was forced to begin running a stitching and embroidery service from home. In an effort not to make her family suffer, Anita’s mother combined this income with her life savings to support their lifestyle.

Anita is a glowing example of the opportunities that Project WHY can create. She attended
the centre in Giri Nagar untill Class 12,
and recorded consistent scores of 75-80% throughout her school career. As one of our brightest students, she secured admission to the prestigious Delhi University to do her B-Com in 2012.
Anita returned to us after graduating, wishing to provide the same opportunities to similarly underprivileged children. Her parents were supportive, indeed they knew she was safe with us and did not want her working anywhere else. As one of our oldest and most successful students, we were happy to take her on as a primary teacher. She then went on to teach some of our brightest secondary students in 2012.
In 2015, she came to us with the news that she would have to leave the job, as her parents had found a boy in the village and wished for her to get married. We had no choice but to accept this. Yet, four months later, Anita returned and asked to resume her old post, which we were happy to give her. The boy’s family had demanded a large amount of money as ‘dowry,’ claiming her to be dark in skin and apparently not sufficiently pretty. Yet Anita, as a product of Project Why, had learned to speak for her rights. She knows her self-worth, beauty and value to society and refused to get married under these conditions. She therefore spoke to the family herself to reject the boy and the forced marriage.

Dowry or Dahej is the payment in cash or/and kind by the bride’s family to the bridegroom’ s family along with the giving away of the bride (called Kanyadaan) in Indian marriage. It runs across all class and caste. Although Dowry was legally prohibited in 1961, it continues to be highly institutionalized and prevalent.  The groom often demands a dowry consisting of a large sum of money, vehicle, house, furniture, and electronics. The dowry system puts great financial burden on the bride’s family

At Project WHY, we pride ourselves in discussing prevalent social issues such as caste, dowry, violence against women and sexual abuse. We believe that we have made our resource persons fully aware of their rights and responsibilities. Anita, at that moment, stood up for her rights and refused to get married on those terms and conditions. “I am as good as any girl on this planet,” she voiced.

Today, Anita is back teaching and continues
to value education above all else. Together with her mother, she is funding her brother’s B-Tech from IP University, at a cost of INR 60,000 per year, striving to give him the same opportunities in life that she had. Concurrent to her work as a Secondary teacher, Anita is now pursuing her M-Com. She wants to apply for a government job, from which she feels she can have an impact on an even wider scale. Yet always thankful of her roots, she will never stop supporting Project WHY, both through donation and through education.

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 universal primary education have observed that Indian schooling, albeit ubiquitous, is simply not to standards.

At government schools, pupils face numerous challenges. Overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers, lack of toilets and unsanitary conditions are common complaints, and can eventually lead to parents deciding that the education system is simply not worth it. Moreover, given the economic conditions of many parents and the need for someone to help out around the house, there is not enough value placed on a girl’s education. Whilst girls attend primary school in roughly equal numbers to boys, the gap widens as they get older and more are forced to drop out to help with work at home or to get married.

One such story is that of Geeta, who came to Project WHY in 2008. She was studying at the time in Class 5 at the local government school. Her family is from Bihar and very poor. They came to Delhi looking for a better life and live on rent in Khader. Thankfully, her parents were quickly put in touch with us and enrolled Geeta, her sister, and her two brothers into our primary programme.

After a year of her studying at Project WHY, Geeta’s father became very sick and the doctor recommended surgery. He was the sole earner of the family but, with little employment protection law in India, he was deemed unfit to work and lost his job. The family soon found themselves unable to pay the rent or buy groceries. During one of our classes, Geeta shared her family’s situation with her resource person, who came to realise that the family were on the verge of eviction. It was decided that Project WHY would assist by raising money amongst the staff to temporarily pay her rent, in order to avoid her family living on the streets that month.

Geeta’s father, still recovering, was incredibly appreciative, and came to Project WHY personally to thank all of the teachers. We found ourselves touched by their situation and decided that a permanent solution was required. Through our community connections, we were able to find a cleaning job for Geeta’s mother in order that the family could make ends meet. Our staff, who had grown attached to the struggling family, continued to check on them every week. We encouraged them, in spite of their difficulties at home, to allow Geeta and her siblings to continue studying, which they agreed to do.

As Geeta’s father began to recover, a vacancy arose at the Project WHY Khader Centre for a security guard. As a sincere and upstanding member of the community, we offered this job to him and the family’s economic condition slowly started to improve.

Geeta, with uninterrupted education and support, secured 85% in her Class 10 exam in spite of her family’s difficulties. She was admitted for her desired science classes in Class 11, but at this point her parents went through an acrimonious divorce. With neither parent willing to pay the tuition fees, Project WHY again stepped in to fund these studies. We provided counselling to the parents and tried to maintain a healthy environment for Geeta.

Now in Class 12 and preparing to go to university, Geeta is appreciative of everything that Project WHY has done for her, saying, “if it were not for Project WHY, nobody would have helped us and our condition would have become worse”. She looks after her parents, who continue to work, and manages the household budget for herself and her siblings. She says that she will always be grateful to our staff and that “my studies have not suffered and through Project WHY’s guidance I hope to fulfil my dreams and become a doctor.”

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 safety and nutrition.

Gyanti Devi’s case was brought to our attention by a friend of the Project, Sunita, at the beginning of 2014. With her husband unable to work due to his handicaps, Gyanti Devi needed income for her family but, with no skill whatsoever, was unable to find a job.

At Project WHY, we felt that our sewing or beautician classes could give Gyanti Devi the opportunity to start a career. However, we soon realised that, being entirely illiterate, she would need more than just vocational skills. Dharmender, the manager of our Khader centre, proposed that she spend the mornings learning to stitch with the vocational group, but also attend literacy lessons with the children for 40 minutes in the afternoon. She agreed to this and became one of our most motivated and diligent students, slowly building up her literacy skills with the children whilst also finding solace in her knitting.

Now, Gyanti Devi is a proud graduate of the Project WHY system and able to read, write and sew with ease. She has started a small business within her village stitching other people’s clothes, with which she is able to provide income to her family. She is also able to read the local newspaper and understand what is going on in the world. She points to an increased sense of freedom and opportunity with the skills that she now has. Previously afraid to take the bus alone, she notes that “I can now make my household budget and also can read the bus signboard.”

Armed with a new sense of financial responsibility, Gyanti Devi has spent the last three years building a new house for the family. She would get up early in the morning and take the interstate bus from Delhi to Palwal (Haryana) by herself, returning late at night. There, she would bargain and purchase the construction materials required. She kept detailed records of all labour payments in a notebook and is proud of her achievements. “I have successfully built my home for my family. So, I can say today that what every man can do, I can also do”.

Project WHY believes that every person should be able to change his or her life, and it provided the support for Gyanti Devi to do this and achieve her dream. She has created a better future for her children and she hopes that the skills she has learnt will allow her family to prosper for generations.