Zara

A fight for basic education

Zara* is the youngest of five siblings.

Her four older siblings were able to attend formal school. But by the time it was Zara’s turn, her father, Saeed*, couldn’t afford to send her to school.

Saeed’s sole source of income as a vegetable vendor could only cover the family’s basic needs. He couldn’t afford to pay his youngest child’s high private education fee. As a result, Zara would spend her entire day at home and on the streets of her slum community.

One afternoon, Vision Rescue’s Community Case Officer met Zara in her slum community and introduced free education at Vision Rescue’s Beacon Learning Centre to her parents.

Zara’s father couldn’t believe his ears when he heard “Free Education”. Without a second thought, Saeed agreed to enrol Zara in our Beacon Learning Centre.

Zara walked in our classroom in the year 2019. Along with quality education, your donations reached out to Zara with nutritious meals, school bags and uniform, stationery, health checkups and dental assessments, an personalised Family Care Plan, counselling for her family and much more – all of this at no cost to Zara’s father.

Saeed toiled hard to keep his family afloat by selling vegetables until one day he couldn’t go out on the streets to sell vegetables anymore. The nationwide lockdown was announced to break the chain of infection, curbing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in March 2020.

With hunger knocking on their door, Saeed began to worry about providing food for his family of seven.

That’s when your help reached right on time to Zara’s family with groceries throughout the pandemic and hearty nutritious snacks for her siblings too.

Soon after, heavy monsoon lashed Mumbai, and flooded their hutment. The seven-member family struggled to sleep on wet floors during the night. We thank you for your generous heart that covered their roof with tarpaulins in this time.

Vision Rescue’s face-to-face classrooms were closed due to the lockdown, and classes were moved online, but little Zara was left behind by the digital divide. Saeed couldn’t afford to buy his children a smartphone for the kids to continue their education online. So we sent an Education Representative to Zara’s house with your help, to teach her on their smartphone. Zara could stick to education throughout the pandemic in this manner.

With no income at home through the pandemic. Zara’s elder sister decided to drop out of her school and work to support the family. Over multiple counselling sessions, our Case Officer convinced her parents to let her continue with the studies.

Gradually, the lockdown began to ease and our Community worker encouraged Saeed to go job hunting. He was soon offered a housekeeping job in a hospital. Little Zara was back in our classrooms this new academic year. She now studies in our OBE Class 1.