Two years back, when 14-year-old Afsana was sent to live with her aunt's house in a small village in Bihar due to extremely challenging financial conditions of her parents, she almost had given up on her dream of going to a school and live a normal life.
The minor was tortured by her relatives and was made to do house-hold chores. "My parents thought that they will give me education but I was not even given proper meals," she said. Following which her parents took her back and she started working at a tea stall to help her family.
"I always wanted to go to school and study but my parents did not have money to fulfill my dreams. So, I thought that I should work and help them until I came in contact with volunteers of an NGO Chetna," Afsana said. "They helped in fulfilling my dreams and enrolled me in a school," an excited her said. After securing second position in class Vth, she is all set to join the new academic session in the coming week.
And she is not alone, in the last one year, as many as 500 children, who used to work as beggars, tea-stall helpers, housemaids and petty laborers, have joined regular schools. "As many as 14 corporation schools enrolled them in west Delhi with efforts of our NGO that works to help children get off the streets and make something of themselves. All these children are very bright and all they need is a little support and acceptance from the society," said Sanjay Gupta, Director of the NGO.
Similarly, 14-year-old Manisha, who had witnessed her mother being abused and harassed by her father and grandmother when she was a kid, used to work in factory until last year. "I always wanted to go to school whenever I saw the rest of the students going to school. But due to poor financial condition and lack of necessary documents, I could not attend school. I used to make tweezers in the factory," she said. The girl was identified by the Chetna volunteers and enrolled in a school and now she is studying in class IXth. "It was like a dream comes true moment for me," she said.
Meanwhile, Sandip, 12, who also used to work at a factory once and ranked second in his class after getting a chance to got to school, is now dreaming of achieving first position. ". There are many more children like me who are now want to study. My appeal to schools is that school admissions become hassle free so that every child is able to attend school," he said.
