In recent times, India has attained the global status of being one of the technologically powerful countries in world map by touching Mars and Moon in very short span of time and even on lesser budget. In a country like ours when we are moving ahead and literally touching stars, why are we leaving behind our children and failing them again and again? It’s a sad reality that despite of world class technologies, global connectivity and financial stability, India still stands at number 102 (as per Legatum Prosperity Index) when it comes to education. While for some slum families educating their children is the last thing on their minds, for most slum children the option of higher education is just a dream whereas some of the underprivileged families and children are simply unaware of the concept of school and education. Sometimes it’s their financial requirements that don’t allow them to fulfil their dreams, whereas, sometimes it’s their own zest to not get educated and there are also times when people don’t even know that they need to be and can be educated. Children in rural areas have been long denied access to quality education and skill development.

To tackle this problem, Nidhi Foundation runs remedial classes under its program Mission Nutrition with the objective of filling the knowledge gap and improving the literacy capacity of the slum children. Nidhi Foundation’s focus is not only on bringing awareness about school education among the underprivileged families but also to mainstream drop-out students to regular schools and our work doesn’t end there. In fact we ensure the retention of students in the schools. We aim on getting the slum children off the streets, in the schools. We focus on improving health, social and economic environment of the children in hard-to-reach regions in order to increase their access to education.

IT COSTS MORE TO NOT EDUCATE A CHILD THAN IT DOES TO EDUCATE A CHILD

We provide free education, free books, school stationary and the study material at our urban slum community centers and eventually get these students enrolled in the nearby schools. We talk, we pursue, we make the parents of these children understand the importance of education and nutrition of their child and this process of raising awareness and community involvement includes all steps from first interaction to successfully enrolling children to school. We provide them the platform to showcase their abilities, qualities and we also help them to gain confidence and develop required skills which will eventually open the doors of opportunities for them in coming future.

Recently, to empower more and more girls in rural areas our team has taken the initiative to educate meritorious slum girls. In last few months we have made our community centers extremely accessible and children friendly. We do various activities and engagement programs in the center so that more and more poor families and children will visit us. We work very hard to discourage children from going back to streets.

In last 1.5 years we have successfully enrolled 35 students in schools and currently we are teaching 100 drop-out and never-been-to-school children so that they can be enrolled in schools in next session.