Nandini goes to school!!

This post comes in from Priyanka, who has been tirelessly working on the pavement schools singlehandedly:


Nandini is the girl with the red hairband in the left hand corner of this photograph.

Always happy, always bright and smiling. Always unfailingly present at the pavement school.

A long overdue post..
This story to uplift our Monday morning blues:

Nandini is an eight year old who lives right outside Vibgyor High in a shanty made out of plastic.Until recently, she had no access to a formal school.The only ray of hope in terms of education for her was our street school that she used to religiously attend Monday to Saturday between 8 am to 10 am. After which she used to spend her entire day being a part time rag picker and helping her mother with the household work.

The teacher of our street school was very impressed with Nandini's intelligence and her burning desire to study. She met her parents several times to push them to get her to enrol in a formal school but they promptly ignored it as they felt that it would end up harming their monthly income and also who would help the mother around the house?

But in the month of May our school teacher finally managed to convince them and helped her fill up the forms for school and ensured that she manages to secure admission in the muncipal school.

Though she has missed out on a year she has started going to Grade I from June onward. Nandini, though, has stopped coming to our street school regularly as now she has to help her mother before she leaves for school.But what fills our heart with hope and pride is that our school has managed to ensure that an 8 year old's life is not wasted by being a ragpicker all her life!

India Helps is dedicated to the cause of ensuring that Nandini manages to study as much as her heart desires.