Growing up on Construction Sites - Our School Children

Today I want to introduce you to one of the few children that we did not admit to the pre-school class of our school but to the 2nd class straight away: Priya.

Priya is most probably eight years old. We cannot say this for sure right now because her parents are also mostly guessing. We asked them to arrange her birth certificate but until we get to see that, we will simply assume that their final guess was the best one and she is actually eight years old.

She lives with her parents and two elder brothers in a rented room in the poorest area of Vrindavan. They are renting one of two rooms of a house and have to pay about 15 US-Dollars per month on rent, electricity and water. This is the reason why they decided to not send their children to the cheap private school they had sent them to before – in the past year, they several times had to borrow money from neighbours to pay for the school fees!

Both parents are daily labourers. They try to get work every day but tell us that he gets work about 20 days a month and maybe half of these days, she can come along as well. Additionally, he has been working as a helper at a doctor’s clinic for the past five years for an hour every morning, completing simple tasks. Obviously, this alone doesn’t bring a lot of money and they depend on him getting enough work as a labourer in a month to make ends meet.

When the mother goes to work as well, the kids are at home alone. Sometimes, Priya doesn’t want to be on her own at home while her brothers play in the streets and so she joins her mother – she has spent a lot of time of the past years playing on construction sites while her parents were working there. She has been to school a few years as well but now, while her brothers will attend a state school, her mother thought about just keeping her at home – until they got to know of our school.

It is these children that we are working for and when you visit such a home, you realize how much of an impact our work will have in this girl’s life. Instead of stopping education now, when she knows to write her name in Hindi but not in English, when she can do addition but not multiplication, when she has only got the very basics of primary education, she will be able to go on learning. She will be able to get a solid foundation of knowledge on which she can build her life.

We are happy to have Priya in our school and with her so many other children who would not otherwise receive a good education! You can help us helping them! Sponsor a child or the food for a day and give a child the chance to learn!