Today is such a day and we just cannot hold our joy from sharing with YOU.
When the lockdown began in India in March, 2020, we started giving COVID relief and we came across a migrant community from Rajasthan. They live in very poor living conditions in tents (with no toilets, electricity and running water).
We provided cooked food to all but when the lockdown was lifted, we realized that the marginalized children were the most vulnerable as they were not attending school. Children from this Rajsthani community were even more vulnerable because none of them were admitted in school (their parents were too poor to afford English medium school and the children were not proficient in Tamil to join Tamil medium school) and they were resorting to begging.
We decided to extend the COVID relief (cooked breakfast, lunch and morning snack) to children alone. That wasn’t adequate because the kids were eating but were roaming the streets. That’s when we decided to depute our Railway Children India staff to run activities of academic value.
It has been almost 16 months now and our team work is paying off. Children gradually became more interested in the academic activities in Tamil and they wanted more. Today 13 children were admitted to Kangeyanallu government school. Teachers there were quite supportive. We intend to support them for an extended period of time through evening tuition center as and when the lock down gets lifted and schools reopens to ensure that there are no drop offs.
Our team, with your financial support may not have just supported 13 individuals but may have pulled 13 generations out of poverty and we cannot thank you adequately in words for trusting our work.
