Success Stories
Education Comes Knocking in India
- By The Global Fund for Children on August 16th, 2011
- Region: South Asia, Success Stories
Grantee Partner
Door Step School
Location
Mumbai, India
They live in slums, on train platforms, and on the streets. They work on fishing docks and in marketplaces and as domestic servants. They are migrants, moving with their families between villages and the city. These are Mumbai’s uncounted and undocumented children, and they are everywhere—except in school.
Door Step School is trying to change that. The organization finds vulnerable children and engages them in learning wherever they may be—often on the streets and in the slums where they live, work, and play.
Their strategy is multifaceted: preschools introduce literacy and prepare young children for formal schooling; mobile libraries and a school-on-wheels bring education to children’s workplaces at docks and markets; and a study center provides a space for school-going children to get homework help and support.
For six years, we supported Door Step’s core program: community-based nonformal education classes. By bringing services directly to children rather than removing them from their families and communities, Door Step supports working children and young girls, who represent some of the hardest-to-reach children in Mumbai.
At one time, Jyoti was counted among these children. Door Step came across Jyoti, who had never attended formal school, while conducting a regular survey of the slum where she lives with her family. Jyoti’s parents had never thought to send her to school, but after Door Step staff convinced them to send her to one regular class, she began to thrive.
“She showed great interest in reading stories, which she would enact for the class, sometimes using puppets,” says Bina Sheth Lashkari, director of Door Step School. After spending a year in the nonformal education class, Jyoti enrolled in a formal school and continues to love learning.
Door Step’s innovative and successful projects have had a measurable impact in Mumbai. Door Step reports an overall increase in the number of school-going children in the area it serves. Like Jyoti’s parents, more families are making their child’s education a priority.
We awarded Door Step School with a Sustainability Award in 2009, which it used to establish a low-risk reserve fund, contributing to the organization’s long-term viability.
Photograph ©Vineeta Gupta/The Global Fund for Children
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