YOUR GIFTS HAVE OPENED A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ASIYA.
“Early childhood offers a critical window of opportunity to change the trajectory of a child’s holistic development and build a foundation for their future,” says UNICEF.
But children living in poverty or those affected by crisis and conflict often miss this window of opportunity.
Asiya and her siblings are among those who were missing out on their crucial years of learning.
Little Asiya lives in one of the poorest slums in the glamorous city of Mumbai. But like many others in their slum community, Asiya’s family is too deprived of all the basic municipal facilities such as sanitation, water, electricity, etc because her community is unauthorised. Her family of five lives in a small tin hutment.
Asiya is the youngest among the three children; her eldest sister is 7 years old and her brother is 5 years old. Poverty robbed their crucial years of learning as they never had an opportunity to go to a formal school.
The coronavirus had closed the doors of Asiya’s slum community for our Case Workers but with the help of our community champions we were able to enroll over 1000 children in our online classes this year. Our community champions introduced free education at our Beacon Learning Centre to Asiya’s parents.
Asiya’s parents happily agreed to enroll her and she joined our online Nursery class this academic year 2020-21. Asiya loved learning new things every day through the online videos and activities that her teachers sent her daily.
Pre-pandemic, working as a helper, Asiya’s father earned around Rs.6000/- each month out of which a hefty amount goes towards private dealers for electricity and water charges, and with the very little that is left, he struggled to provide basic needs for the family everyday.
But one day, his world stood still. 24th March 2020. Asiya’s father would never forget this day.
The pandemic hit the country and a nationwide lockdown was announced. Asiya’s father lost his job overnight. The tight financial rope he was walking on had just gotten even tighter.
But Asiya’s father worried about feeding his family everyday. Things were getting worse but thankfully your support towards Vision Rescue’s Covid-19 relief efforts was growing stronger. With your generous support, Asiya and her family received groceries every single month of the lockdown and the little ones were given hearty nutritious snacks to fight malnutrition during the pandemic.
Things were getting better but then the monsoon arrived to make things worse again for Asiya and her family. The tin roof of their house started to leak and the children struggled to sleep on the wet floor every night. Once again, your donations reached out to Asiya’s family and covered their roof with tarpaulins.
All of these services helped Asiya stick to education online even during the pandemic. Asiya’s mother couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw her progress at our Beacon Learning Centre Open House!
Asiya dreams of becoming a teacher when she grows up only because your donations didn’t let her miss out on her crucial years of learning. We look forward to enrolling Asiya and her siblings in formal school soon so they continue to sustain in education. Thank you for empowering Asiya and her family!
