Doing homework was a pretty daunting task for the poor children in the slums who study in government-run schools. With no literate person at home, the kids had no one to guide them in their homework, let alone learning outside the school curriculum.
However, after the Bal Sanskar Kendras came up things have changed a lot. The children are not just happy at their schools but they are performing well in the cultural shows. Students from all these seven centres assembled at Bairagi camp centre to pay their respect to their teachers on Tuesday to mark the Teachers’ Day. They even mesmerized their listeners with the songs they sang.
A school teacher Mahesh Chand Kala is behind the transformation of the students from what they were (struggling against darkness with nothing to light them up) into what they are now (brimming with energy and showing a spring in their gait born of a new expectancy from life). He is the person who has been running seven such Bal Sanskar Centres in the slum colonies of the city for the past few years. Under the banner of Sewa Bharti, the centres are run in Kankhal, Ravidass basti, Bairagi camp, Chandi Pul, Ranipur, Ghaziwali and Vishnulok colony. The classes are held in these centres daily between 4 to 6 pm after the school gets over.
Besides, two tailoring centres and a Samrasta Kendra have been started at Kangri village to enable the unprivileged women from the backward classes to look at life straight in the face. They also do kirtan (community singing) on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Kala, a retired Chemistry teacher at Balmandir Senior Secondary School, said that a teacher has been appointed for every centre to help the children with their homework. “While 80 minutes are given for the children’s homework the rest of the time is used in giving them the ‘sanskars’, the eternal values of life that the country embodies. Besides, the village women are stitching clothes at the tailoring centres and earning money to run their households,” he added.
The school teacher having given the lead, the college students and even the homemakers are now coming forward to take the mission ahead. “Devoting an hour a day is not much of a problem for those who are willing to render service to the society they are a part of. It is heartening that more and more people are coming forward to help the mission find a wider fruition,” Kala said, adding that teachers with monthly salary of Rs 800 per month are being sent to teach the unprivilged children in other parts of the city too.
A teacher working at Ma Chandi Devi Bal Sanskar Kendra said she was happy being a part of the mission. “I approached Kala sir, asking him to make me a member of the mission. I am grateful to him for having given me the opportunity to take care of the educational needs of such wretched children.
As I have to help my daughter in her homework daily I have no problem in helping other children in the same. We must all spend some time in such noble work. It gives us a peculiar contentment of soul which can hardly be found if we choose to remain confined within our narrow domestic walls,” she said, eyes beaming in a radiance of fulfilment.