Till a few years ago,attending school was a distant dream for children of the 80 odd families staying in shanties close to the Mulund dumping ground. With the mothers spending a better part of the day collecting scrap at the dumping ground and fathers slogging as labourers,their children were far away from the world of alphabets and numbers. Things started changing around five years ago when Salah (Social Action for Literacy and Health),an NGO affiliated with CRY,started an anganwadi within the settlement. Today,40 children attend classes in the anganwadi every morning. Ten children have gone on to join the BMC school two kms from the settlement. Salah volunteer Sunil Ahire says,Unorganised daily wage earners are the most neglected lot. The government is not keen on educating their children. When we came to this place,the families were initially indifferent. It took us almost a year to change their mindsets. Today,more and more parents are sending their child to our anganwadi. The anganwadi paves the way for these children to get formal education in government schools,Ahire added. Kishan Bhau Dado,a resident of the slum,was the first to send his daughter Renuka (8) to the anganwadi. After getting pre-primary education here,my daughter had the confidence to join the BMC school. She is now in the fourth standard, Kishan said. A proud and thankful Kishan went from house to house convincing parents to send their children to the anganwadi. Before the makeshift bamboo and tarpaulin structure came up,classes were held outside his house. Shobha Songare a resident,who was initially reluctant,now sends her youngest son Ajay to the anganwadi. Her elder son Suresh and daughter Archana study in standard seven in the BMC school. Our lives will be spent within this dump yard. To ensure my children dont have to spend their lives here,I want them to be educated, said Shobha. She said she has never earned more than Rs 50 per day but wants to see her children working in big firms. Every morning,children arrive at the small classroom carrying slates and chalks. Along with Ahire,21-year-old Kavita Sukhane,a resident of the slum,teaches them Marathi alphabets,numbers,songs and rhymes. Charts of fruits,vegetables and animals adorn the bamboo walls. Kavita,who used to collect garbage from the dump yard,has attended school up to standard nine. The first step towards getting out of this vicious circle of poverty is education, she said. Children are also taught the importance of cleanliness and hygiene. They dont have a water connection and have to walk three kilometers to get water for drinking and cooking. They bathe in the nearby lake,where they also wash clothes and utensils. All this,in addition to their proximity to the dumping ground makes them vulnerable to diseases, said Ahire. BMC officials often come and pull down the illegal anganwadi structure but the children are willing learn even without a roof. Seven-year-old Ashok Jaiswal who loves going to school said, Muncipality aur police ne hamari ishkul tod di. (Municipality and police officials brought down our school.) Apart from Mulund,Salah also works for eleven other basties (slum communities) in Bhandup,providing pre-primary education to over 200 such children. As Ahire puts it,The hardest part for a human being is to change,especially when it is for the good. All we do is to try to bring about that change.
