After successful running of AID Gurgaon Mobile Creches, now with Nishank's continuous efforts we have a new project in our group. Nishank named it as Unnati. The project has been started from scratch and volunteers will be working without the support from any other NGOs. I believe the volunteers now are experienced enough to make this project a success.
Here is how Nishank describes his views:
Hi all,
Here is a brief update on the new project to be initiated by AID Gurgaon. There is a slum area which is located 5 mins drive from Evalueserve’s office (near Rajeev Chowk, close to Delhi-Jaipur highway). The slum area is called “Ret-Mandi” by the people there. On Saturday, January 20, 2007 while returning from Mobile Creches, Sachin, Munish, Sumit and I went for the survey of the area. The basti consists of more than 50 families with around 150-200 children.
The basti is on a barren land where people have put patch-like shelters. The basti is around 6-7 years old and some of the people keep coming and going if they are not able to get any work. Most of the families there hail from Rajasthan. The people there are basically daily wage earners surviving on hand to mouth existence. Their occupations vary from working as mason, labourers, making ropes, selling things on thelas etc.
The children there have no access to education. Some of the children there have been to school earlier, but had to leave their studies in between. There we met a boy “Shambhu” who has studied till class 5. His father was asking if Shambhu can be admitted in some school. We talked to few more people there and their responses were really good. They told that hey would help in every possible way if we start some teaching activity there. Even the children there want to study. The parents said that since there is no school nearby they are not able to send them school. Moreover affordability is an issue for them as sending to school means expenses in fees, uniforms, stationeries etc., that too when they have no regular source of income. Finally we returned from there and told that we would come the next day too.
Yesterday Sachin and I went to talk with more people there. We gave Shambhu a Hindi Storybook, a notebook and a pen. He even read aloud a paragraph from the storybook. Seeing him other children also told that they want notebooks. Even some of the adults there told that they want to learn reading and writing. There are children of all age groups. They were busy playing with their customized toys. Few of the adults there told that teaching these children is next to impossible task as these children won’t listen to us. We told that we will try our best and asked them to be a bit strict when we will start classes thereJ !!! We also took few photos of the children and the place there. The children were very excited to get themselves photographed.
We are planning to start classes there on Saturdays and Sundays. (On Saturday from 3-5 p.m. and on Sundays from 2-5 p.m.) Here we should strive for overall community development here rather than only the education of children. In this slum area no NGO or Govt. body visits and there is a lot of scope and challenge to do something constructive here. We will have to start things from scratch here. One of the possible names for this project can be “Unnati” as these people really need some development.
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