Educate street children in rural India

All through 2019, Snehalaya has been celebrating 30 years of empowering women and children. As 2020 approaches, we would like to share a little more on our work. Having started in 1989 by our founder taking two children away from the red-light areas for a few hours a day we have matured into a well-recognised organisation providing life-changing impact at grassroots level. All 23 of our current projects seek to address the root causes that leave women and children vulnerable to exploitation and your support ensures we reach over 17,000 people each and every year.

Your support of our educate projects funds some of our work in seven of Ahmednagar’s slum communities and we want you to know just how far your valued donation goes. According to Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation, 15% of our city’s total population lives in slums. Since our first Balbhavan was established in a former leprosy colony, Sanjay Nagar in 2003, we have worked with over 10,000 children and their families.

A healthy and happy family makes for happier and healthier children and our work in slums goes beyond the classroom. Our aim is to uplift the communities through healthcare, sanitation and in Sanjay Nagar’s case we are going event further. It is the only slum built on government land, covering 2.09 acres with 209 dwelling units of varying quality but they are primarily crude hand-built homes or corrugated sheet shacks. With a population of 873, it has a unique social structure with nearly 22 different communities living side-by-side but has no health care facilities or storm water drains.

Under a Government of India’s 'Housing for All' scheme, we are working with the community and partners, including an American architecture foundation, to redevelop Sanjay Nagar. We are creating 298 locally-owned homes based on principles including social, economic and environmental sustainability, inclusive process, social cohesion and infrastructure, and solid waste and waste water management. There will also be a new classroom for our after-school clases as well as other community spaces for meetings and celebrations.

The slum-dwellers have embraced the development and are committed to purchasing their new homes at subsidised rates. Already some of their homes have been demolished and we are putting them up in temporary accommodation until they can move into their new homes. By providing cleaner, greener and sustainable living conditions we will be ensuring the children you are supporting will be living in a much healthier environment where they can focus on their educations and futures.

We would like to thank you for supporting and enabling us to be able to take on projects like this to improve the lives of the children we serve and we hope you continue your journey with us to see how this exciting development unfolds. Finally, we would also like to wish you and your families and loved ones a very merry festive season and all the best for 2020.

Links:

• Visit our website
• Read our 2018-19 Annual Report

Thank you so much for your support in helping to educate the street children in urban communities. You can never over-estimate what a difference you are making.

This year from June we began a new academic year and as mentioned in our earlier report we saw the enthusiasm of our children in our “School Chale Hum” program welcoming the children on the first day of school. We also celebrated the success of our students passing out 10^th and 12^th Standard with flying colors.

Now we are looking forward to their academic progress as they continue to learn new things each day. Even child residing in the slums has the right to education. This is the core purpose of our ‘After School Slum Education Program’. We have come up with a unique program to develop the interest of these children in education; Scholarship!

This year is the third consecutive year that we have introduced Scholarship program for our students. Each year 140 students from 5^th to 10^th standard from seven centers in the slums are selected by a preliminary exam. The selected students are mentored for 9 months after which they face a test for 5 important subjects. 7 students scoring the maximum marks gets educational material like books, writing material etc worth Rs 3000. Besides the academic performance the overall behavior, cleanliness, extracurricular participation of the students is also included in the criteria while selecting the winners.

The main aim of the scholarship is to encourage our students to their overall development as it is targeted on four basic areas; curricular, general knowledge, language and behavior. This also serves as a motivation that helps our students to achieve excellence in whatever they do whether its curricular or extra-curricular activities.

It also serves as a warm up for their upcoming future where they are preparing themselves for various Government competitive exams. And as for now it is already helping them to improve their academic performance and personality.

We would like to share the success story of our student who took advantage of this scholarship and has already set a bench mark and has become an inspiration for others. Ashna is one of our regular Balbhavan students. She has always been a sincere child and passionate about education.

 Her mother left their home when Ashna was a child. Her father and Ashna are the only members of the family. Her maternal aunt stays just next door and is always supporting her. Ashna has never had her mother around to share the little things in life but her aunt has been a great support for her. As she is his only daughter, her father was initially reluctant to let her continue her education in higher classes.  But after the Snehalaya counselors conversed with him, he agreed.

Ashna appeared for the SSC exams (10^th Std) this year and passed with flying colors. She scored 81% marks and stood first in all the students of our Slum program.

She aims for a career in Science faculty and now she is pursuing her further education in Bhausaheb Firodiya Junior College, a reputed college in the city.

We thank you for your support with the help of which we are reaching a diverse range of children within our slum community schools. While we aspire to encourage and support as many children as possible to break the cycle of poverty by gaining the qualifications they need to make their dreams come true, we also aim to improve the overall quality of life for as many children as possible.

Links:

• official website