JANATARA SHAIKH

Janatara Shaikh was 17 when she was forced to marry Nazrul Shaikh, who is 18 years her senior. Her father was mired in financial troubles, and hence gave Janatara away in marriage to Nazrul. Nazrul already had a wife and children from an earlier marriage, and after his wedding with Janatara, he began to split his time and resources between his two households. Janatara moved into a makeshift hutment in the slum community of Kalwa as a homemaker and was at the mercy of Nazrul’s whims and fancies.

Nazrul gave her money erratically to survive and at times physically abused her. Soon enough Janatara was pregnant with Murtaza Shaikh. When Murtaza was three and a half years old, his brother Sahil was born.

Janatara somehow managed to keep her family afloat. Their nutrition was poor and their home was often an unhygienic mess.

Despite these difficulties though, Janatara was a force to reckon with in her slum community. She was an influential conversationalist and when our community workers met her in early 2017, she was an ideal candidate to become a Vision Rescue community champion. This meant that Janatara would be an evangelist for education, nutrition and healthcare in her slum community.

Janatara actively took on the new role, beginning by admitting her eldest son Murtaza to our Senior Kindergarten classes, and by maintaining a clean home as advised by our community workers.

Janatara was so effective in her work that she was soon promoted to a community intern at Vision Rescue! Murtaza was regular at our classes and within a year he was ready to join a formal school. On a shoestring budget though, Janatara could not afford any of the schools in her locality.

That’s when you equipped our community workers to network with Adarsh Vidyalaya school which in turn took Murtaza in on a discounted fee structure.

With Murtaza now regular at formal school, Janatara admitted Sahil into our junior kindergarten classes this year. In the meantime, Janatara had to place her work on hold as she became pregnant once again. Little Rahil is today 9 months old, and Janatara looks after him at home full time.