WUNRN
INDIA - BUS SCHOOLS BRING EDUCATION
TO SLUM CHILDREN - GIRLS
Children write letters from the Telugu
alphabet as a teacher conducts lessons inside a bus converted into a school at
a slum in the southern Indian city of
11/7/2011
- HYDERABAD, India — On a hot afternoon, a bright orange bus drives into a
slum area of the southern Indian city of
It's a
school on wheels that brings education to the doorstep of disadvantaged
children such as these every day, halting for several hours at a time in
different parts of the sprawling city.
The
children, whose parents are day laborers on construction sites, or work as rag
pickers and maids, either never go to school or drop out once enrolled. Many
have to work as hard as their parents to pay off family debts.
"These
children have no time to go to school, unless the school comes to them,"
said T.L. Reddy, founder of the CLAP Foundation, a non-governmental
organization that runs the mobile school.
"At
first we prepared a temporary tent in their slum to give basic education for
the children. Then slowly we developed the concept of a school inside a vehicle
to attract more."
Reddy, a
teacher for 25 years, first thought of doing something for the children when
they caught his attention a decade ago. After gathering donations and setting
up the tent first, they began operating the bus three years ago.
The inside
of the bus is bright and clean, its walls festooned with the alphabet, numbers
and pictures of fruit and animals. Children perch on seats around the inside of
the bus, writing on slates they hold on their laps.
Some days, the bus is so full that children
sit cross-legged on the floor as a sari-clad teacher talks to them.
"The
teaching is good in this bus and nobody beats us," said 10-year-old Devi,
who enrolled in the first grade of primary school three years ago but soon
dropped out.
She
attends school in between helping her father collect rags, and hopes to be a
teacher.
'Only chance they get'
Manjula, another 10-year-old girl, bubbles with excitement about her studies
and wants to be a doctor to bring medical care to slum children such as
herself.
"Now I can read and write from 1 to
200 numbers," she said.
The goal,
Reddy said, is to teach the children enough for them to be mainstreamed into
government schools. So far, some 40 children have done so despite the
considerable odds.
"The
greatest hurdles are things ranging from the erratic schedule of the students,
and the varied mindset of their families," he added.
But the
school's greatest achievement may be something far more simple.
"This
is the only chance they get to be kids, even if it is for only two hours,"
Reddy said.