2016 has been the Year of Transformation for Project WHY! It began quietly without fanfare and ended with a bang. The mood on day 1 of the year was bittersweet. Everything was on track and all centres were running like a clockwork orange. The children were happy and...

  Angels do not have wings! Sometimes they appear in the form of a spunky 8 year old. I was wondering what my Xmas message would be this year! How could I know that it would come to me in a sealed enveloppe. The enveloppe contained a card and a message! This was...

  Tuesday, November 29th 2016 was a blessed day. One had waited long years for this moment. One of the most cherished vision of Project WHY has been to have children from both side of the spectrum meet and learn from each other as Project WHY believes that it is...

For those born before the advent of TV, the lessons best learnt were from stories told to us by parents or grandparents or discovered in books found in every child's room and  read with avid passion. The art of story telling is ancient and prevalent in all cultures....

Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen everyday wrote Adrienne Posey. I second that unequivocally! In the past 16 years of running Project WHY, I have seen them happen and lost count. Another one was conjured in the past 48 hours. I was woken up on...

It was lovely to have Shalini back for a 'day' to join the Project WHY annual picnic that she has never missed for the past decade. This year she almost did as for the past months brave Shalini has been nursing her ailing mother. The often difficult stubborn special...

Ramchundur Goburdhun 15 August 1911- 29 November 1992 Most know us as Project WHY only. A few know that our legal identity is the Sri Ram Goburdhun Charitable Trust. And not many know who Ram was and yet if not for he, there might not have been Project WHY. Ram or...

The burning of schools in Kashmir vindicates the belief that education is the most powerful agent of change. Destroying a school destroys the future of children forever. Education is a powerful tool. The question lies in the way you use it. In the early years of...

  Like any teenager, Utpal often calls from boarding school to ask for something or the other usually food as at his age kids seem perpetually hungry or for a book of some kind. So when he called last week we were expecting 'chips' or 'cookies' and were very...

India celebrates Children's Day today. There will be celebrations across the land. But for some, like the little fellow in the picture we now fondly call the 'bucket baby' it will be a day like any other. This little fellow was born around the time Project WHY...

PT as we all know or at least presume stands Physical Training and is a high school 'subject' in India. It would be reasonable to again presume that it means playing games, training for individual and team sports etc. Not quite so in the Chacha Nehru Hindi High...

An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal recently. It is entitled: Why the Vast Majority of Women in India Will Never Own a Smartphone. The emerging new middle class will purchase all sorts of things ranging from washing machines to even air...

Way back in December 2007 we celebrated Xmas at the women centre. One of our resident at the women shelter was Christian and she told us about the cakes her mom made and we ordered many for the party. Sophie one of our volunteers wanted a full scale celebration so...

The news of Bob Dylan getting the Nobel Prize for Literature was one of the best news coming my way in a long time. For those of us who were young and impressionable in the sixties Bob Dylan was an intrinsic part of our lives. I write this slightly personal note today...

Don't go by the picture! These kids are the luckiest as they live on the bank of the river in the middle of green vegetable patches and breathe good clean air, or at least the best available in our capital city. For the others the invisible bars of polluted air are...

Two weeks ago, two class XII students murdered their teacher. The reason: he expelled one of them for poor attendance. Rage, anger, frustration? Nothing can condone violence of this kind and the boys will face the law. The question that begs to be asked, though few...

All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? wrote Nicholas Johnson. Television is the most ubiquitous object as it breaks all social barriers and finds its way in every nook and corner of the land. Satellite dishes dot the most...

You may be wondering why the illustration for this post is an ultrasound plate. The reason is that there exists no picture of the child whose story we tell. Little Sonny was born a month or so ago to a beggar woman of the Kalka Temple. This was the mother's 4th child,...

A recent UNESCO report states that India could be late by half a century in achieving its global education commitments. It would need to make fundamental changes in the education policy if it were to meet the 2030 goals. At present India is expected to achieve...

India has the largest number of stunted children in the world reveals a recent study. For Project Why that is one too many! The main reasons are: lack of toilets, dirty water and poor hygiene. In urban slums and even lower middle class colonies that is a reality....

When a friend offered to run a healing workshop for Project Why staff so that they in turn could share it with the children we were a little hesitant. The reason being the multitude of faiths and beliefs followed by them. However we had faith in the sixteen years of...

A young girl was victim of the ubiquitous hit and run syndrome that is a familiar occurrence in cities. Most get reported. Some make front page if a 'celebrity' or 'privileged' is driving a 'swanky' car! There are some hit and run cases that never make any page. Most...

Government to enlist gurus for organ donation campaign is a recent headline. The article goes on to say: "The health ministry plans to rope in spiritual gurus to help dispel myths about organ donation". This is undoubtedly a good move. Organ donation is a noble cause...

    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...

  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...

  Kid Speak is cute. There have been TV shows like “Kids Say the Darndest Things’” or books like “Children's Letters to God” that always delight us and warm our hearts.  But the kind of Kid Speak we share today is the one that puts a lump in your throat and...

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...

              I fist heard of Sindhutai many years ago when I was researching 'good news' stories for a friend. Her story was a true inspiration more so when I felt reluctant to 'ask' for money. I wrote about her way back in 2011 and...

Clarisse and Xavier have not 'adopted' Utpal legally but are nevertheless his French 'parents', and do everything a 'parent' would : loving him unconditionally and being there for him. Nothing proves that better than the story of a cricketer of yesteryear who...

She was barely 5 when she first joined the special section. It must have been in 2004. She could barely walk or talk. She was like a tiny frightened bird that needed to be tamed. As days went by and we got to know her better the smiles came hesitant at first then...

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime. Scars heal but the pain never goes away. And yet child abuse is on the rise. Recent studies show that there has been a 50% rise in the crime against children rate. Increased urbanisation seems to be a contributing...

Our dearest friend Kabir of Azure Hospitality conjured another miracle. This time an invitation to a 'posh' lunch at the new Mamagoto in Connaught Place. For many of us lunch at a restaurant is a mundane affair. This is another story. Most of the invitees had never...

Today we would like to walk down memory lane and talk of all the visitors we have had over the years. In most cases they return more than once. That is the magic of Project Why: once you walk in you leave a little bit of yourself and take a little bit of us.We have...

Secondary Class at Khader The Numbers Perspective! Sounds like a title of a Robert Ludlum thriller doesn't it? Come to think of it is is a thriller in its own right: the numbers referred to are the (ill)famed marks that a student secures in her or his class XII...