Md.Saddam

NO INTERNET, NO EDUCATION!

One afternoon, we saw a little boy playing in dirt-filled puddles with his friends. His name was Saddam.

When we enquired about Saddam’s school to his mother, she said that he wasn’t part of any school. Saddam’s father is the only earning member of his family and works as a daily wage laborer, finding jobs at Mumbai’s construction sites to earn the day’s keep.

The family survives on the approx Rs.8000 that he earns each month. They live in a tin-sheet hutment in one of Mumbai’s poorest slum communities. Each home here is about 100 sq ft and as their slum is unauthorized, they have little access to municipal sources of water and electricity. So they draw electricity from unauthorized sources and pay hefty amounts to private dealers for water.

According to a survey undertaken by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 190 people use one toilet seat in the slum community where Saddam lives. To make it worse, a few years back a community toilet collapsed plunging three men into a 15-feet septic tank.

When the family fights for these basic necessities such as water, electricity, and sanitation, education for Saddam was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

So Saddam’s parents enrolled him in our Beacon Learning Centre in June 2019. Saddam, who had never been to school, found it difficult to sit in one place. He missed playing outside and would often peep out of the window to see his friends playing. After days and weeks of counseling and interactions with his parents and peers, Saddam started attending our classes regularly.

“Saddam is a quick learner and is one of the most active students in class,” says his teacher today.

Along with the precious gift of free education, your donations have also reached out to Saddam with hearty nutritious meals every weekday, stationery, regular health checkups, and dental assessments, educational material, and much more.

When the first pandemic lockdown hit the country in 2020, Saddam’s father, the sole breadwinner of the family, couldn’t go to work anymore. With no source of income, he could either afford to pay for water or buy groceries for his family. He struggled hard for his family’s survival. Generous donors like you then stepped in to help Saddam and his family with groceries each month throughout the pandemic and hearty nutritious snacks for the children.

When the schools shifted from physical classrooms to online classes, like millions of poor children across India, Saddam was too left behind due to the digital divide. Saddam’s parents who had one working smartphone at home couldn’t help him join our online classes, because they didn’t have money to recharge their phones and access the Internet. That’s when your gifts reached out to Saddam once again and an Education Representative was sent out to Saddam’s place to teach him on their own phone.

Because of your gifts, Saddam was able to continue his education online right from his home, and he has completed an academic year online and is now enrolled in Senior Kindergarten with us.

Such a joy to see little Saddam grow!

Thank you for extending your kindness and love to Saddam and his family in these difficult times. It is your gifts and donations that brought education to Saddam’s life in the first place and helped him sustain in his studies even through the worst of the pandemic.

Thank you for your generosity!