Christmas Party for Pavement School kids

This just in from Priyanka:

Planning to have the annual street school party on 26th December, Sunday at the same place as last year (Prabodhan Hall, Goregaon West). If anyone would be interested in contributing for the party do let me know. The gifts are being donated by Vibgyor High students.
Let me know if you are interested and hoping that you all can attend the event.

If anyone would like to contribute to the party in any way or attend as a wellwisher, do write in to us at indiahelps@gmail.com, with your telephone number. We will get in touch. Thank you.

Christmas Party for the children from the Street School

This report in from Prachi:

Hey All,


I attended the Christmas Party yesterday and I have to say, it was just wonderful. (I'm trying to give a more formal report here and not just blabber about how much fun I had.

The party was really well-planned with Priyanka having thought of each element. The place was perfect for the group of children, all the children from the pavement schools (above 5 years of age) were invited and you could see how excited they were as they arrived in perfect single-line formations with their respective teachers. I have not seen a more excited yet disciplined bunch.

As the children were seated, the party host took charge. He had the children entertained and listening to him, a few times when he needed help the proud teachers stepped in and took care that the kids were all well-behaved. Once the host started with the games, it was so much fun!All you could hear is music, laughter and claps. The kids were SO responsive and they just had a ball as they all played, won, lost and laughed; I myself couldn't stop grinning. I'm going to send some pictures soon but couldn't wait to send this mail :)

After the party games Magician Mhelly had the kids glued. He put up a really great show with some great tricks and lots of audience interaction. Especially, his trick with the lil magician doll Pappu spraying the kids with 'susu' had the kids rolling with laughter. He mentioned later that he doesn't always get such enthu kids as audience, his job was easier because the crowd was great.

As the magic show reached its finale the chief guest came in, ho-hoing all the way. Kudos to Ruchi, she was a FANTASTIC Santa. The kids all flocked around Santa and danced away, then each one shook hands and received the gift from him. Even while handing out gifts, this very lively Santa teased and entertained the kids, making each one feel special. With the last gift given the music was turned up and all the kids danced away with such vigor. It was just reallllly festive with not one dull moment. The dancing had to be stopped only so that the big chocolate cake could be cut. The Prabodhan canteen had sponsored and prepared the snack packets for everyone and these were handed out with candies, juice and cake. Priyanka the very sweet hostess made sure that there wasn't one person left out (including the one with the very upset tummy). With the party coming to a close the teachers from each of the school had the still excited children file out. I have to say this, for such a big group of SUCH enthusiatic children it was remarkably well-managed affair.

So, if the smiles, the bright eyes and the amount of fun had are anything to go by, this was one hell of a party!!

A BIG THANK YOU: Prabodh Desai for the venue, Prabhodan canteen for the snacks, Dilnavaz, Mr and Mrs Vanmali for the magic show, Ruchi for being Santa, everyone from India Helps and outside who chipped in to contribute for the cake, and gifts, all those who took time out to attend the event. And finally, a big big hurrah for Priyanka for making this possible. It was only her singleminded dedication that made this party a rocking success.

Attendees: The teachers and volunteers. From IH, Dilnavaz, Renu, Priyanka and Prachi, Vickram Chaturvedi, Mayfrid, Raut Sir, Ramnik Bhai, Mr Nadar, Mr Mukherjee, Prabodh Desai and Mitesh.

Children's Day at our Pavement Schools

The Computer Science department (headed by Prof Vinita N Gaikwad and her students) of Thakur College, Kandivali East, visited our pavement school on Childrens Day and distributed snacks and gifts to the children. Here are the pictures...

A big thank you from team India Helps!

Christmas Party for our Street Children

We at India Helps are planning a Christmas Party for the children of
our street schools. We invite kind souls to pitch in with gifts, goody
bags and anything they would like to distribute to make the children
smile.
Gifts should be giftwrapped and labelled with the name of the person
who has given them. You could hand them across personally on the day of the party (which will be announced soon, once we finalise it), between 8 to 10am at our pavement schools in Goregaon West, or
you could drop them off at our office:
India Helps
1/7 Nityanand CHS,
SN Marg, Andheri East,
Mumbai 69.

Thank you.

Independence Day at our Goregaon Street Schools.

This report just in from Priyanka:

On August 15th, both our street schools got together to celebrate Independence Day.The kids were asked to assemble by 9 am, but most of them were there by 8.15 am itself! They were so excited!! Many parents had also come to see their children perform.
The function took off late as it was raining. The celebrations started with with Ramnik bhai (our primary patron) hoisting the flag and all the 102 kids singing the National Anthem. After this, our tiny kids (5-7 year olds) sang a few nursery rhymes,followed by a few group songs by the kids like 'Itni shakti humme dena data', 'Vijayi Vishwa Tiranga pyaara'. We had a very enthusiatic group of girls dance on 'Me ahe kohli' followed by a 'Radha Krishna' act
We also felicitated the kids who performed well in their exams last year. It was really heartening to see a sparkling scrubbed clean Nandini attend in her crisp neat school uniform!

We ended the function with Ramnik Bhai speaking a few words, a few thank you's and a very big thank you to the teachers for managing to get the kids to perform at such short notice.
By the time it ended we had a massive crowd of onlookers who had stopped by to see the kids perform and the crowd cheering the kids enthusiastically!
The guard outside ICICI bank helped us a lot as well in setting up the flag pole, and the tables and chairs and is definitely more enthusiastic than the staff of the bank!
Like I have mentioned earlier it definitely was the best I-day celebration for me ever. I just hope it only gets bigger and better next year!

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.

Help the Pavement school children

We at India Helps had organised an alternate location on Goregaon Link Road itself for the children of our two pavement schools during the monsoons. This was done way back in May.

Unfortunately, the person who has promised to lend us the space is now just not reachable despite our best efforts, and our poor children are missing days of school due to the rains. If you know of any dry covered space that could be made available to around 150 children between 8am to 10 am, Monday to Saturday, in the area near Vibgyor High School, Link Road, Goregaon West do let us know at indiahelps@gmail.com urgently. If there is a nominal rent involved, we could raise funds for that too. This is solely for the three months of the monsoons.

Help us keep our children studying.

Thank You from our Street school kids

This from Priyanka, who has been holding the fort at the Pavement Schools, what with me being AWOL for the past few weeks:


Hansa ben for providing biscuits in both the schools almost on a regular basis!

N.N Chaturvedi for Rs.1,000/-

Nidhi Chaturvedi for Rs.1,000/-

Mrs. Agrawal for Rs.500/-

Namita for Rs.500/-

Ratna Dhanda for Rs.500/-

C.K Chaturvedi for Rs.500/-



Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
A new scholastic year is coming up and the children will now need new books, stationery, bags and the like. We request kind souls to step forward to contribute these.

Pavement School visit by Nomad

This came in from Nomad:

I went to Pavement School 2 today (the one outside the ICICI branch on Link road, Goregaon) and came back very happy. It was so good to be welcomed by open smiles and bright eyes; it took only a few minutes to get friendly. I suspect I was having more fun than them in helping them where they got stuck and just watching them do the lessons. I am already on first name basis with at least 7 of them!Including Prince who asked me if I am the same Prachi who comes on TV and is now in movies :) (Ms Desai would be surprised at how popular she is!)

There were around 70 students today and everyone seemed to be paying attention to their subjects. The three teachers had divided the class into three by making them face in different directions and taking up three subjects. Given the number of students it was being managed very well with each student being given problems and lessons as per the age. We do really have a wide age band with the youngest Kashish looking about 3 and the eldest ones in 8th std.

Along with snacks the children were also given calcium supplements which is great! One girl had fever and the teacher told me that there's a Doc nearby who checks them and gives medicines free of charge.

I had my friend and her two daughters with me - she has been wanting to get involved so came along to meet the students today. Her younger daughter mixed with the kids and had a good time while her driver - Pandeyji gave a Hindi alphabet lesson to a young student who had written in all wrong in her notebook. She is planning to give the school a water container - like a cool keg or something so that we can place drinking water, right now a few of them carry their own bottles.

I also got to meet Mr. Nadar and he told me about the picnic he and Priyanka are planning. Priyanka, do tell when is it and may be even I can join the kids :) Also, I will try and talk to a friend who is holding summer camp craft classes at her home if she can do a craft session with the children here.

I do need to say this for the record - Priyanka, Kiran and everyone who made this happen, its just great and I'm so proud! We came back with the widest grins on our faces :)

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone cam.

Hypercity takes up IH pavement schools as CSR

This report from Priyanka should have been up last week:



Hi



On Saturday Hypercity volunteers came to the pavement school as part of CSR.This is a culmination of IH talks with them to come and participate in the pavement school.They have kindly agreed to come every Saturday from 8am to 10am to spend time in the school.I have attached a few pics from that day.

Hoping we manage to get more corporates who take CSR seriously to come and be a part of this endeavor!

--



Priyanka



And this from today:



Five of Hypercity volunteers were there today.They distributed notebooks and pencils in school 1.



From Team IH: A big Thank You to Hypercity for supporting this initiative!



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Pavement School Two launched today!!!!

Today we flagged off Pavement School Two. With the help of Mr Jagdeep Dighe and his wife, Mr Raut, Mr Nadar, Ramnikbhai, Charu Sir (a resident music teacher who has kindly helped us with locating teachers for the school, and offered us his premises to store the school material after class everyday) and his wife, and the local Shiv Sena Shakha Pramukh Raju Padhye were present along with the teachers. From the India Helps team, Priyanka (who is truly the driving force in the pavement school initiative), Renu and Sumita, apart from yours truly were present. We had around 15 new students at last count, which was most heartening, apart from that we had people stop by and offer their help in any way. A resident balwadi teacher stopped by and began teaching the children, a gentleman got off from his car and offered sponsorship, the response on the first day was most encouraging and heartening. Most touching to me, personally, was the uncontained excitement on the faces of the children who had come in from the slums opposite. Ramnikbhai had brought along some uniform tshirts which we distributed, apart from notebooks, and everyone involved had brought along some snacks which we distributed to the kids. Jalebis, pedas, some farsan, chanas, bananas, they had a hearty breakfast.
This school is outside the ICICI bank, on the pavement, located right after the Bangur Nagar signal on Goregaon Link Road. The school will be open Mondays to Saturdays 8 am to 10 am. Anyone who would like to teach the kids, offer them snacks or just drop in is welcome.
On Saturday, Priyanka and I met with Smitha Verma of The Telegraph at the Pavement School opposite Vibgyor, and she accompanied us into the slums nearby where we went in for a short round of canvassing to inform people living there about this school and to request them to send their children there on Monday.
Pictures will be up shortly.
Anyone wanting to help out in anyway for either of our pavement schools, please do write in at indiahelps@gmail.com or info@indiahelps.org.

This is how the Pavement School celebrated Holi

Report from Priyanka:

I went to the school do distribute the pichkaris,colours and gujiya that Parul had sent.You can't imagine the happiness on the children's faces!!
We started off with getting one of the kids to share the story of Holi.We spoke to the kids about playing safe Holi.And when it came to distribute all the kids excitedly awaited their turn and were VERY HAPPY with the things they received..Every kid had a big smile on their faces and thank you on their lips..It was really very touching!All the kids clapped in happiness...the moment was absolutely beautiful..When I was leaving after spending some time with them all the kids shook hands and wished me a very happy Holi!

Parul a very big thank you from the bottom of my heart..You not just made their holi but mine as well..As this is one Holi which I shall remember forever!

Update on pavement school project

Good news. Priyanka and I had a final meeting with Mr Raut, Mr Nadar and Mr Dighe who run the pavement school opposite Vibgyor High (Link Rd, Goregaon)this morning. We are officially tying up with them to co-run this current school (staff strength 3, student strength currently 51 and growing) as well as set up a second school a signal away (Goregaon Bangur Nagar signal). The targetted date for setting up this school is March 15.

Where we come in:

Funds: Estimated cost of running the school is Rs 10 to 15000 per month. Inclusive of salaries of three teachers and books/stationery and supplies. Individuals who could chip in with essentials like chattais, blackboard (rollable for storage purpose) stationery and who would be willing to sponsor basic text books/pencils/notebooks/ slates/ chalks etc are welcome to contact us.

Snacks: We also need committed souls who will provide snacks to the children on a predetermined day per week to incentivise attendance once the new school is up and running.

Teachers: The current school needs one more teacher as the strength of the students is growing and no child is turned away. We need to recruit three more teachers for the second school. Retired Municipal school teachers, D.Ed holders who live in the vicinity would be preferred.

Volunteers: Kind souls who could drop in occasionally and help the children in higher classes with their studies or those who could come in once a week at their convenience to teach the kids some arts or crafts are welcome to contact us. The school runs Monday to Saturday, 8 am to 10am.

If you would like to be part of this effort do mail us at indiahelps@gmail.com.



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This is what we did this morning....

Priyanka, Renu and I decided we could do with some smiles today. We landed up at the street school which is right opposite the school our children go to. We pass these children sitting on chattais, rote learning their lessons, every single day, and we have been off and on, handing out stuff to them. We just decided to make it official. We've taken up the responsibility of a day of the week each where we give each child something for a snack. A packet of biscuits. A fruit. A cupcake. Anything that would make them want to come to school and learn. And we will get them books. And stationery. And whatever we can get to keep them motivated in attending the classes conducted in the open.

This is the germ of a proposed India Helps project, we are working on. We're still investigating how we can take it across Mumbai or across India. Serendipity, Sumita and Sayantani are working on that. But right now, I'd like to leave you with some happy faces. And, yes, that is me doing the handout stuff. I think they made me happier than I made them.....