Kiran Devi lives in Bhowapur’s ragpicker colony, on the outskirts of Delhi. She gets up early every day and works long hours sorting out rubbish and classifying it in different categories so it can be sold.
Kiran now sends all five of her children to school every day and encourages them to study hard so they will not have to be ragpickers like her. She is as committed as anyone in the community to the education of her children.
The Jugnu education project, supported by Phia Foundation, has helped give Kiran’s children a good start in their studies.
The project aims to reach hundreds of children living in slums, helping to lift them out of desperate squalor and deprivation, by providing them with ‘bridge’ schooling and enrolling them into formal schools.
Phia Foundation programme officer Hemlata Rawat says: ‘Kiran wants her children to go on to higher study, so that they can make a career in a dignified profession.
‘She also wants to send her daughters to the hostels where they would have safe and healthy environment.
‘We want these children to come out of this kind of place. We want them to work in good conditions and have a dignified life. We want these children to continue their education.’
In Bhowapur and other slum areas Phia Foundation will continue to:
- Establish education centres and provide school materials, including books and teaching aids
- Train community leaders to help ensure the effective running of the schools and work with parents to improve understanding on why education is so important for their children
- Provide clean water and healthy food to children to help improve their concentration and learning.
