Life with a monkey is tricky business. For Yellu Bai Gadge, mother of Roshni and Priti Gadge, that’s especially true. Every day, she roams the streets of Mumbai, performing tricks with her monkey for money. Some days, her earnings are halfway decent. Other days, not so much. What stays steady however, is Yellu Bai’s desire to give her daughters a life better than hers.
Yellu Bai wasn’t always this way though. A year ago, she didn’t believe much in education. She’s illiterate herself and wasn’t bothered with getting her daughters schooled either. But everything changed when she met our community workers within her slum community in Kalwa. They convinced her about the game-changing, life-altering value of education, and she agreed to send her children to Vision Rescue schools inside the slum. Her younger daughter, Roshni, three-and-a-half, now attends our nursery classes, and her older daughter Priti, aged five, graduated from our nursery recently.
Yellu Bai always had the choice to not send Priti for further education, but she chose to ask Vision Rescue for help admitting Priti in a formal school. Priti is now a regular student at Anand Nagar TMC school, a government-run educational institution nearby. Yellu Bai is so sold on the importance of education that she now constantly urges the other women in her community to send their kids to school.
Yellu Bai, Roshni and Priti aren’t the only ones in their family you’ve impacted. Soni Gadge, the children’s aunt, has just joined our tailoring classes, and is on her way to using her new-found skills for financial independence. Thank you for being the catalyst for change to two generations in this slum community!
