by anouradha bakshi | Aug 16, 2016 | Uncategorized
Project Why children celebrated Independence Day! There was the flag hoisting in all centres, the regulatory speeches, the patriotic songs and of course a lot of Bollywood dancing. The children enjoyed themselves and the celebrations ended with the ubiquitous all time favourite: the samosa!
Watching the children with their innocent faces and trusting eyes was moving and bittersweet; even if one spoke of education and its importance in accessing a better future one could not help noticing the stark difference between these children and their more privileged peers. But that morning, be it on the roof of a temporary structure erected on a garbage dump amidst factories spewing toxic smokes, or on yet another roof in a crowded slum or on the banks of the Yamuna surrounded by vegetables fields, for those magic moments every dream was possible.
It was later, after the children had gone back home with memories to share and the adults had returned to their everyday life, that reality struck.
Project Why has been committed from its very inception to doing every thing in its power and more to help these children break all glass ceilings, but it would be naive to think that this will be possible for all as there are too many obstacles in this race. And yet to reassure us and make sure we carry on, miracles happen when one child breaks out of the cycle of poverty in which s/he was born and succeeds.
We remain aware that Project Why is a drop in the ocean and that there are too many children that may just drown.
And this is a reality we must accept in the land we live in. Over 1 lakh schools in India have just 1 teacher was a recent headline that made one shudder. It means that 100000 schools function with just one person who, as the article said, doubles up as administrator, clerk, caretaker, midday meal servers, nurse and sundry crisis manager. Such souls need to be saluted as they are wonder persons!
by anouradha bakshi | Aug 9, 2016 | Uncategorized
The rains have created havoc in the city for the past days and yet nothing unpredictable as it is monsoon time and a good monsoon is what everyone hopes for. Vladimir Nabokov said: “Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.” And fall it does, transforming the world as we know it in a jiffy.
The picture above is our Okhla classroom. Sure the roof was temporarily patched and is holding, but water is seeping through the cracks in the wall and even from outside as here too the word ‘drainage’ is not part of any lexicon.
On rainy days children and staff spend most of the time clearing the water away as best they can. No one asks for a day off. What is needed is a a dry spot to lay out the mats and begin class.
This is but a tiny example of how just one heavy spell of rain can alter one’s day.
The reason is poor construction and absence of planning. Even the best of us forget to plan for the proverbial ‘rainy day’.
Last week’s rain saw the city come to a halt as roads got inundated and one could only wait for the water to recede.
But life goes on and people brave all odds to ensure that it does. Our kids live in homes that bear the brunt of the rain’s fury. Their homes being low lying means they get flooded. School uniforms do not dry and thus they miss school, not to speak of the soaked bedding that means sleeping on the hard floor. But it is all part of the game of life.
Do we ever give a thought of how many challenges are met by those we often take for granted to ensure that our lives do not get affected by the rains?
Do give a thought to those who make our life better, whether the lady who comes to help in our homes or the man who cleans our clogged drain or even the electrician who repairs the lights blown because of the rains.
As for Project Why teachers, they too brave all odds to come and teach the children.
by anouradha bakshi | Aug 2, 2016 | Uncategorized
The Upper House of the India Parliament passed a Bill to Amend the Child Labour Act 1986. The amendment prohibits the engagement of children below the age of 14 in all occupations and processes so that they are able to enjoy their fundamental right to education. It should be a cause of celebration for the likes of us at Project Why. Child labour in any form is abhorrent and reprehensible.
The celebration is short lived when one sees the caveat that defeats the intent. Although it abolishes child labour in any form it introduces a proviso that allows children under 14 to work in family enterprises. Nothing alarming you would say keeping thinking of your own child and your family enterprise but this means that children can help families after and before school, our kids do help with home chores don’t they?
But what if your family business is rolling beedis or agarbattis, making bangles, packing and sticking labels or any of the umpteen of labour sub-contracted to families on a per piece basis. So the more you make the more you earn and hence the tiniest hands are usefully productive. Many parents of Project Why children engage in such work, the easiest to access.
Often children who ‘help’ in such work spend hours before or after school helping the families. In the early days of the Project Why’s Yamuna centre parents would happily come to class and ask for their child as (s)he was ‘needed’ to help pick vegetables. It took us some time to convince them to stop. Mercifully they have.
At that time we thought law was on our side but today it is not. True there is the before or after school but is making a child work acceptable, that is the question we must ask.
Attending school in itself is sufficient ‘work’ for any child. A child who has spent some hours rolling beedis or making bangles is already tired and will not be able to concentrate in school and hence will perform poorly. The time when (s)he drops out will not be far as the choice between work and school is a foregone decision.
This approach seems to imply that the best for a child is to carry on its family’s profession and maintain status quo.
But every child has a right to dream and dream BIG. That is what we believe at Project Why and strive to achieve.
The best example is our very own Sanjay who was born on the street to a family of gypsy ironmongers, who was a Project Why student, then teacher and then doors opened and he is now an International Ramp Model. That is because his family allowed him to get an education and work in another profession. Once the gates open, the sky is the limit so why shut the door on India’s children dreams.
Please join Project Why on its
by anouradha bakshi | Jul 26, 2016 | Uncategorized
Kajal
Children often surprise us with the things they say. There have been television programmes such as “Kids Say the Darndest Things” and books like Children’s Letters to God that make us smile. But sometimes a child’s words do something very different. They reveal a world that no child should have to know.
Every morning, on a narrow stretch of pavement outside the Kalka Temple, a mother performs a small act of love. Before the day begins and before the struggle for survival resumes, she carefully ties ribbons into her little daughter’s hair and sends her off to school. Around them, life is harsh and uncertain. Yet in that simple gesture lies a quiet dignity and an unwavering belief that education can open doors that poverty has kept firmly shut. But the kind of Kid Speak we share today is the one that puts a lump in your throat and leaves you feeling heart broken and helpless.
I have made friends with school going children who live in the open at the Kalka Temple. Most of their parents survive by begging. At night the family rolls out their beds under a narrow tin awning and in the day the same is rolled away and placed on some ledge or other with all the family’s belongings including the precious school bag. When asked why he had not gone to school, a little boy replied, “mama had to take my sister to the doctor. She has asked me to look after the bedding and make sure it does not get wet if it rains.” It was indeed a very cloudy day.
I was further enlightened when another child who had not gone to school said, ”We do not go to school when it rains as our uniforms get wet and would not dry for the next day.” I came to know that most kids have just one set of uniforms and thus the need of it drying is critical.
When I asked a little boy if he wanted toys to play with I was told almost dismissively,”I only like to study!” Do these kids intuitively know that learning may make a difference in their lives?
When I enquired about a little girl who had a high fever I was told that she had gone to school. Before I could react another kid told me, ”You see, if she had stayed here she would have been running around; in school she will be able to rest.” Yet another lesson.
These children struggle to survive with whatever dignity they can muster. It is touching to see how a mother spends that little bit of extra time tying the ribbons in the hair of her daughter as she readies her for school on a open stretch of road or how she goes haring down to see who had brought in the tastiest offering so that the child can have a better breakfast (people bring food early mornings as offerings to the deity).
I was surprised to see a beggar woman sitting on a step with het two school going children and holding a copy book and a pencil. She was helping her kids with their homework. I asked her if she had been to school and she proudly answered, ”I have studied till class III!”.
One wonders what brought her to where she is now.
To many of us, beggars are the pesky children that knock at our car window at red lights. But that is not who they really are. They are all people with a story, a story that needs to be heard.To know more about ‘beggars’ do read this article: Oh, that pesky Beggar…why doesn’t the Police take him away?
We at Project Why are working on getting these children the extra education they need.
Hope you will join us!
by anouradha bakshi | Jul 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
This week’s blog has to be written in first person as it symbolises the very spirit of Project Why. For the past weeks as we set out to ‘makeover’ Project Why to make it presentable to a wider audience I have been asked the question about whether we want to increase our numbers and the answer has been a firm no! “Never say never” to quote Dickens’s I should know more than anyone else as this has been the silent maxim we have followed in our quest to answer why’s. So my answer should have been worded differently: No, unless the need arises.
For the past six weeks I have been doing a daily pilgrimage to the Kalka Temple. For those who have never been to this temple it is difficult to imagine the surroundings. To reach the sancto sanctorum you have to wade through absolute filth that can range from remnants of food to dog and even human excrement; you need to navigate the sleeping bodies of beggars who lie helter skelter; you have to ward off the millions of flies that attack you. But faith conquers all and I have never felt disturbed by any of this.
What has disturbed me deeply though are the number of children of school going age that run around the place. In the morning you do meet some all dressed up in their school uniforms being taken to school by their parents but there are still too many loitering around the whole day.
You have to know Project Why to understand that we, or rather I, could not remain a mute spectator or be deterred by the cynical comment of a few. Something needs to be done to help these children. It took me no time to find out that the school- going kids had no after school support. There seemed to have been someone once but ‘she’ left and ‘she’ charged money was what one parent told me.
When I asked whether they would like us to teach the children the answer was an overwhelming yes from both parents and teachers. I then asked one mother whether we would find some place and she immediately said she would do so. I was touched by her enthusiasm but a little , too. Imagine my surprise when the very next day she came to me beaming informing me that she had talked to the person in charge of the night shelter and that the person had agreed.
From that day, every morning I am met by the children who often bring more children, all willing to attend the classes they want us to hold. I feel a tad ashamed at not having acted yet, but the process is on and if all goes well, we could begin soon. The question of not doing so does not arise. As I have always believed and stated Project Why is not ‘to question why but to do and die’.
That is what we have always been and would like to be for times to come.
We have been asked why we do not have a three year activities plan? The answer is simple: because we do not know what and when the next why will come our way.
I hope that all those who have know and care for Project Why understand what I mean.
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