Pehchaan The Street School
Education, which should be a basic right, is unfortunately a luxury for a few. Near a slum in Noida runs a school that functions in a unique way and aims to impart knowledge and teach co-curricular skills to kids of that area.
Students starting from the age of five come to attend classes on weekends. They learn paintings, dances, and co-curricular skills, which are hardly taught in the conventional schools they attend. Every weekend, they learn good habits in a session conducted by a team of volunteers of the organisation. More than 500 such volunteers across India are part of a NGO named Pehchaan that runs 10 such centres across the Delhi-NCR region. The initiative was started by a bunch of college-going students’ way back in 2015 who were into social work and activism.
The Beginning
“When I was in college, I used to do social work, so I started with basic environmental work; it went on to corruption, and there were a lot of other moments. It was after 4-5 years working on the ground that I realised that whatever we are doing, it’s of no use, says Akash Tandon, the co-founder of this initiative.
He says they decided to start this initiative because they believe “the knowledge that will be shared, the knowledge that you share with the students, will always stay. It will only grow with time.”
The purpose of making this centre is not just to teach math, science, and english and other conventional subjects like other schools, but rather to make them learn varied soft skills that would help them stand out in the future.
Recently, the organisation has started physiological classes in all 10 centres for senior students. “We can’t teach them like other schools as all volunteers here are working professionals and college going students.” said Akash.More than 1500 students are part of 10 centres. All these centres run mostly on community centres. These centres are either a temple, a mosque, or even a Gurudwara in one case.
Social Impact
Describing one such incident, Akash explains, “We were running one of their centres near a mosque, and one day a ‘Maulabi’ came and asked to use the mosque. They gave us the whole mosque where we were running the school now.”
The Noida centre runs in a school on weekends. Ruhi (changed name), who comes to the centre to attend classes, expresses her pleasure coming into the school, saying she loves to come to this school as she learns drawing here.
The interesting part is that the whole initiative runs on crowd funding and donations. The NGO more often organises crowdfunding drives.
Akash pointed out that seeking funds from others would mean losing control over the functioning of the schools.
“We never tried to reach out to government organisations; the basic reason is there were no full-time people here who can go to meetings and they can follow. Right now it’s working fine. People who constantly contribute,” Akash says.
Humble Volunteering
As mentioned earlier, the initiative was the brainchild of a bunch of social activists and college students. Leejo, Sam, Monica, and Akash were stunned when they witnessed children swimming in a drain near a slum in the heart of Delhi. The slum was a few kilometres away from the residents of parliamentarians and the headquarters of WHO.
“We did the whole set up, and we started teaching. Within the next 6 months we have more than 150 students there, because all the children came to know that there were groups of Didi and Bhaiya who came every weekend and taught us free.” Akash explained about his experience establishing the first centre.
The initiative, which started with a group of didi and bhaiyas, is soon going to complete its decadal journey with its wings spread across India. The students who were once part of the initiative have now entered into reputed colleges; even a few have joined the professional workforce.
Akash says that the parents have developed a sense of faith that their children will succeed from here. “These students have learnt from the years and developed a faith that if this student can do this by associating with the institution, then we can also do it.”
Final Thoughts
Volunteers are the source of energy behind running this initiative. One such volunteer, Bhaskar, who joined 6 months ago, says, “The motivation to come here is children. I come here for children. They gave me the power to come on the weekends. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of activities.”
These centres are bringing a much-needed change among the kids of slums, to inspire them to take the path of knowledge and education.
Pehchaan The Street School Official Website
