NOT LEFT BEHIND!
The M-East Ward in Mumbai is dotted with settlements where over 276 residents share one public toilet seat and over ten settlements do not even have legal access to water. The scale of poverty in this section of Mumbai is in stark contrast to the financial capital’s wealth. Six-year-old Ramakumar lives in one such settlement.
Ramakumar’s family migrated to Mumbai from Uttar Pradesh to earn a living. His father found a tin hutment he could afford in the M-East Ward and the family settled down there. Living in abject poverty in these unauthorized slum communities meant that they have limited access to basic municipal facilities such as electricity, proper sanitation, and even drinking water.
Like others in the slum community, Ramakumar’s father Indrmohan too paid hefty charges to private dealers for these simple necessities.
Ramakumar’s mother stays back home in their village while his grandparents take care of him here in Mumbai.
When affording necessities is a struggle, the right to education becomes a privilege. Ramakumar is one of the worlds’ 175 million pre-primary children who are out of school. But because of your generosity, Ramakumar was able to step beyond his circumstances and study at our Beacon Learning Centre inside his slum community. He joined us in 2019. Your gifts reached out to him not only with education but hearty nutritious meals, health assessments, dental checkups, lunch boxes, stationery, books, school bag, and much more.
In March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was announced to combat the coronavirus. Ramakumar’s father couldn’t go to work anymore. The sudden announcement of the lockdown caused confusion and chaos in Ramakumar’s slum community and several thousand daily-wage workers like Ramakumar’s father attempted to leave Mumbai immediately.
Without sufficient savings and with his daily-wage income suddenly cut, Ramakumar’s father was helpless. He wondered if they would survive the lockdown. His only option was to join the migrant laborers walking out of Mumbai for thousands of kilometers back to their hometowns.
Once again, it was your generous donations that stepped in and stopped him. Your gifts provided this family with grocery kits every month of the pandemic. Ramakumar’s family is one of 1400 families that your gifts have sustained with nutrition kits from April last year to date. Your generosity has provided groceries for over 2 million meals for the poor during the pandemic. Your generosity ensured that Ramakumar didn’t sleep on an empty stomach even when his family had no income.
Moreover, schools all across India have been shut for 1.5 years, but your gifts helped Ramakumar continue his studies online with us even when our physical classrooms had to close down. His family had one working device at home, and this ensured that Ramakumar could attend our online classes for the last academic year. He wasn’t left behind by the digital divide like thousands of other poor children like him have been during the pandemic.. “I’m very happy to see my child’s progress,” says his grandmother. He’s now enrolled with us in the new academic year too!
