Two city youths making poor children dream big on footpath
Two city youths making poor children dream big on footpath
To encourage children from poor families to study, two city youths are providing free classes daily to such children whose parents are unable to bear the school fees.
Underprivileged children in slums are prone to fall prey to social evils like loitering, begging, drug-peddling, abuse, pick-pocketing etc. Mentoring such kids has now become an objective for Dear Madavi and Sonal Sethi.
In the absence of a room, an open-air class of around 50 students between six and 16 years of age is held on the footpath near the Pagalkhana Square daily.
The ‘Footpath School’ was a brainchild of Dear Madavi who is a former student of Hislop College.
Dear started the school last year when the first wave of the pandemic was on its peak. “During lockdown, we had distributed free sanitizers in slums in the city.
Once when me and my friends reached in a slum near Pagalkhana Square where we found that the kids who are the students of a nearby municipal school are unable to continue their study due to the pandemic.
At that time I had decided to give them free classes,” said Dear Madavi to The Hitavada. “I have started the free classes with 10 kids and with very limited resources.
It was very difficult to handle them all single-handedly,” said Dear. But, one day Sonal Sethi saw us on the footpath.
She came and showed her support and interest to give free education to these kids. Now we both are managing the classes regularly, he added.
Dear and Sonal teach the kids English and Mathematics and also conduct extra activities like singing, dancing, karate, elocution etc on Sundays.
“ It was our wish to teach such students who are not going to school for various reasons. Our objective is to encourage them to stay away from evils as education is the way to success.
We want to see these children stand on their feet,” Dear added. We are getting little support from few of our friends who are also now showing interest to teach these children voluntarily, he said.
Dear also said that the parents of the kids were also supportive and want to see their kids in schools after the pandemic.
