Inclusive Education changes lives -Angel's Story

When mum and dad just don't have the money to send their kids to school 

Angel is 10 years old and she has two siblings. She attends the Project Help India Education Centre in Ferozepur City, in far Western Punjab. Angel's family faces extreme financial hardship with them barely earning enough on a day to day basis.. Her parents, Aman and Shalu, work as a labourer and maid, respectively, struggling to make ends meet. Unlike many other parents in the slum,  Aman and Shalu recognise the important place that education has but they simply cannot afford the very small fee required to send their children to the local government school. Then came a chance for the kids to attend the Project Help Ferozepur Centre. However, even with this opportunity, Angel and her siblings resisted and lacked interest and motivation for studying. Being their first time at a school we wonder if they did not understand what it was all about,  With time and a lot of loving patience and support from their teacher, the children slowly changed. Angel became engaged and captivated by her lessons and this impacted her academic performance for the better.
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Angel's mother expresses gratitude towards the centre and its teachers for the transformation she observes in her children. With a newfound enthusiasm for learning, Angel and her siblings strive for a better future. The family's story serves as an inspiration for other children in similar circumstances, highlighting the transformative power of education and inclusive intervention programs like Project Help India which provide advocacy for marginalised children who because of poverty cannot afford to send their kids to school.

www.projecthelpindia.co
Project Help India tackles the dire circumstances faced by India's marginalised Dalit community, offering education to children living in slums or remote villages, who would otherwise be vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. By providing education centres (with meals where possible), parenting programs, and counselling, we seek to change societal attitudes towards education, particularly for the most marginalised, especially targeting children with disabilities. Our holistic approach aims to break the cycle of inequality and poverty, advocating for, and bringing hope and opportunity to some of the world’s poorest children, who would otherwise be trapped in a life of hardship, deprivation, and limited opportunities.

Project Help India has 6 centres in the state of Punjab with 222 students (ages 4 to 17) at a recent count. All up we have 13 Education Centres across 3 states in Northern India with a little under 600 enrolments in total.