A letter from Aarohan

On Wednesday this week, we received another letter from Aarohan and some more pictures including the above photo of children in front of the new Aarohan centre.

Rani Patel writes:

"I always look forward to mails from CDL as they are a great source of inspiration and a tremendous morale-booster. I don’t have words to thank you for the kind of support CDL is mobilising for Aarohan through various fund-raising initiatives. We, at Aaarohan, feel so blessed with this association.

The new academic session of the schools in Delhi starts in March and, accordingly, we absorb new students at our centre to foster an uninterrupted flow of learning. As per your request, we will definitely keep you updated about happenings at Aarohan from time-to-time. We have already asked our students to chip in about their impressions of our centre and how it has been instrumental in bringing a change in their lives.

As you know our main thrust is to send as many children to schools. Our target area is the nearby slum dwellings of Malviya Nagar. In 2005 when we started this work, hardly 20% of slum children were going to school. Today, I would like to share with great pride that it has multiplied to 80-85% with our sustainability rate hovering over 90%. Definitely, you would be curious about the rest of the 15% who are not attending. It can be attributed to the floating population which keeps migrating to Delhi off and on.

Now we are trying to develop centres in other needy areas. The establishment of Aarohan’s centre at Baripada, Orissa (a state in India) is a culmination of this thought. It’s one of the most backward areas where in order to access school, children have to trudge a few extra miles. The unrelenting summer heat makes this trek more arduous. Their ‘homes’ are small, dilapidated mud houses where’s there’s no provision of electricity and water. The parents of the children are engaged in crafting bamboo baskets through which they earn a paltry sum of less than 10 francs per month, which is not sufficient to buy enough food to fill their empty stomachs.

The centre is being run with a paltry amount of Rs 5000 (125 Swiss Francs). At present, there are 100 children enrolled with the said centre. In my next mail, I’ll be sending a detailed report about it"

The picture above shows the children in front of the new centre. This picure carries the caption "the children break into laughter at the mention of food"