A poor Family with enough Space - but only temporarily - Our School Children

Today I would like to introduce you to Vikrant, a ten-year-old boy who studies at our school. I told you once that every of these poor families have some kind of story or live in circumstances which make you suddenly feel very rich and lucky to have what you have. The same is true with Vikrant’s family, even though you wouldn’t realize it on the first glance.

The entrance to Vikrant’s home is a door at the end of a small passage in between two other houses’ walls. You reach the door and expect a narrow, small room, maybe with a staircase up to provide more space. What you see however lets you think that this family’s situation cannot be too bad! There is a quite large entrance hall, two rooms on the left, a kitchen and then another three rooms, separated through a small step.

We ask, is the house yours? Vikrant’s mother, a jolly and lively lady, answers yes, it is. Only yours or do you share it with your husband’s brothers? ‘Oh, ours is only this room here’ – and she points at the first room on the left. The other room belongs to her husband’s elder brother who is currently working in Delhi for some months. ‘And the rest of the house?’ She points at the small step in the hall, after which there are the other rooms and the kitchen. From there, we learn, it is actually a separate house but the rich man to whom it belongs is not living there yet. Once he will move here, he will put a wall there and then the houses will be separated. Until now however, they are allowed to use the kitchen and other rooms if they keep everything clean.

They, Vikrant, his parents and his two brothers, are thus living in a big house but can at any time be reduced to living in one room only. One room is anyway occupied by their family member. Once the owner of the second house part comes back, there will be a wall and they won’t have as much space and will have to cook in the hallway. As of now however, they are happy to be able to use the whole space.

Vikrant’s father earns about 55 US-Dollar a month with his job in a small company in town as a handyman. With this money, he has sent his older boy to school but realized that it will be difficult to afford the same school for his two younger sons as well. That’s how Vikrant is at our school now and his younger brother may follow next year as well.

Vikrant is in the third class. He is a good student but he does lots of nonsense as well, which obviously his teachers are not too happy about. Everyone knows however that this is just normal for a ten-year-old boy and we are looking forward to seeing his further development in the coming years at our school!

If you would like to help a boy like Vikrant getting free education and food, we would be happy about your support by a child sponsorship or sponsorship of the food for a day!