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Of 10 million invisible children

Unknown to mainstream society, an entire generation of construction workers’ children is growing up without an education or familial support.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Part III of the ‘Little People’ series

‘By 2025, more than half of India will be urbanised. Our fast growing cities are built by millions of poor migrant labourers who live on construction sites with their families and enjoy hardly any of the benefits of India’s growth. Since both parents work, very young children are placed in the care of older siblings, or left to fend for themselves in the midst of the hazards of building sites. More than 10 million children live this way.’

– from a booklet by Mumbai Mobile Creches

We know there are children in slums. We know that our domestic help has enrolled her children in a municipal school. We see the little servant kid in the next building every morning as she walks a grumpy child, not much younger than her, walk her ward to the bus stop. There are others who loll about outside shops, drinking in the sights and smells of the city and scarpering off when asked a lot of questions.

Some children are truly invisible. Like the ones that are born on construction sites. They get left behind in a quickly-built shanty a mere walk away from cement mixers that do their thing, and these little ones’ parents put in a day’s work loading and unloading trucks, or carrying bricks up several flights of just-hewn stairs. What do these children do? Do they go to school? Have they ever been inside one? Is there life an endless blur of play?

Far from the eyes of the city, in the several hundred construction sites dotting Mumbai, the children of construction workers grow up in shanties, grappling daily with abject poverty and the many illnesses that come with dire living conditions. Rootless, shifting from place to place with their parents as one site closes and another one starts, these children receive no formal education and often start working at a very young age.

Colaba-based NGO Mumbai Mobile Creches (MMC) is probably the only organisation currently working for this invisible class of children, giving them an education and the upbringing that can help absorb them in mainstream society. The NGO runs day-care centres on sites that have at least 25 children on the site, and these conduct training programmes for early childhood development. “At any point of time, we have 25 centres operational. Last year, we reached 4,000 children,” says Anita Veermani, Manager, Grants and Communications, MMC.

At each centre, children are provided with basic lessons and three meals a day, six days a week. “Our nutrition programme is comprehensive – we provide medicines, multivitamins, calcium supplements and we have regular doctors visits also,” Anita says, adding that unhygienic living conditions and no access to proper medical care results in the children having skin and eye infections, and a lot of them have lice. “The children are often malnourished, they have worms, they have cough and fever and also a host of injuries,” Anita says.

A staggering fact is that construction workers come to Mumbai from 17 Indian states and two other countries, and most of them stay on for a period of about five years. “We try our best to reach as many children as we can,” Anita says. “But it is more important to get the mothers involved, and a bigger challenge is getting teachers. About 40 per cent of our teachers are women from construction sites who signed up to teach the children,” she adds.

“It is not always possible for each child to enrol in a BMC school, though we have had success on that front as well. Some of our children have grown up and come back to associate with us. Others have taken up site-related skills, like painting.

These children are not exposed to mainstream society, so they remain excluded from the benefits that other children receive. These families keep moving about so much, that even after we have trained the child and brought him up to a certain grade, he may not be able to join a full time school. Our endeavour is to see that they move up the chain, that there is some stability in their lives,” Anita says.

What MMC has done so far:

4,785 children reached

92 PAN cards obtained for the community

6 bank accounts opened for the community

6,233 incidences of illness identified

5,871 vaccinations facilitated

Diaries is a weekly series of stories on one issue. ‘Little People’ is a series of three stories on the education of underprivileged children in Mumbai. 

 

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Teachers, anyone?

The Akanksha Foundation’s Chitra Pandit explains why free education in BMC and PMC schools doesn’t always attract quality teaching staff.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Part II of the ‘Little People’ series

A willing NGO and more than willing students need good teachers. Even a relatively well-known NGO like the Akanksha Foundation finds it difficult to get good teaching staff.

“Our biggest challenge lies in getting good teachers for our schools,” says Chitra Pandit, Director Marketing at the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works in the field of education for children from low-income families. “We have 13 municipal schools between Mumbai and Pune. The model is this: the BMC (or PMC) provides the school building, the students’ uniforms, textbooks and school bags. We provide the rest.” The schools follow the SSC curriculum and have 30 students per class. The teaching is free.

She rues the fact that despite scores of willing parents – there have been instances where more than the stipulated number of 30 students to a class had to be crossed due to overwhelming demand – who want to send their children to their schools, quality teaching personnel are hard to find. “It is a fact that we don’t get the cream of the teaching talent available. The BMC insists that all teachers must have a B.Ed degree, at the very least. But then, those with B.Ed degrees want to teach in reputed private schools. So we have gone into non-B.Ed colleges to scout for potential teachers, assuring the BMC that we would get them to complete their B.Ed at a later stage.

We’ve advertised in mainline dailies, we’ve made our website stronger, we also send out mailers to our contacts and friends, asking them to recommend teachers or spread the word. We’ve actually started recruiting people who are graduates.”

Since no fees are charged but operational costs per school are quite high, the Foundation depends heavily on donors and sponsors. “However, we have not been able to get any new donors on board recently,” Chitra admits.

With the teachers that they do have, however, there are certain parameters that must be met. More parents from the poorer sections of society are insisting on sending their children to English-medium schools today. “Due to the lack of adequate teaching support at home, we have to make doubly sure that they study well in the classroom. They cannot afford private tuitions after school hours, so the teaching in school has to be perfect,” Chitra explains.

Chitra explains that apart from the challenge of dealing with children from underprivileged backgrounds – most of them are first generation learners with no exposure to the English language –the teachers also have to work harder at giving the proper amount of attention to each child, to address their concerns in a caring manner, and to be really patient with the students. The students’ parents belong to the service class – common occupations are domestic help, security guard, driver and vendor – and their incomes, like their own education levels, are generally low. “An inherent quality of patience is a must for the teacher, especially owing to the students’ backgrounds,” Chitra says, adding that the 200 teachers in their Mumbai and Pune centres and schools are tested extensively during their interview rounds.

“Most teachers are aware of the students’ backgrounds, but we also try to gauge their interest in teaching and handling a class right from the interview stage. We ask them to prepare a subject and do a quick demo in a class – this helps us understand their aptitude and preparedness,” she says. Selected candidates are trained in a two-week residential programme, where the Foundation works with them on various fronts. “The focus is on classroom management and academics, but the basic passion for teaching and the skill must be there,” Chitra says.

Diaries is a weekly series of stories on one issue. ‘Little People’ is a series of three stories on the education of underprivileged children in Mumbai. Look out for Part III tomorrow.

 

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Where playing indoors is fun

The Children Toy Foundation houses over 700 games in a Matunga school. Students love their play time and their teachers.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Part I of the ‘Little People’ series

“I practice boxing because it helps me hit hard during fights,” a sturdy little boy answers when I ask him what he plays outside school. The class explodes with laughter. The children, a mix of class four boys and girls, have just settled down after a hectic round of impromptu dancing in their play hour. Vandana Sonawane, presiding with other teachers (all of them associated with the Children Toy Foundation) over the class at the City of Los Angeles School, Matunga Road, claps a hand to her forehead. “See how they talk. But we are glad when we see their confidence, because they speak like this only when they’re happy and relaxed.”

The class says they like playing in the play room and not on the ground outside. “If my clothes get dirty, my mother shouts at me,” another boy says with a twinkle, and there is much nodding of heads at this statement. “Another reason why they love playing here is that they get access to the kind of games they’ve never seen before, and cannot find outside the school. Most of the games we have, especially the strategy games for older age groups, are priced upwards of Rs 1,000. But let me tell you, not a single child, in the 10 years that we’ve operated in this school, has broken a single toy or stolen anything.”

She smiles, then yells out a long, “AYYYYEEEEEEE!” that shakes the ceiling. The fidgety class stills at once, though several faces are working furiously, trying not to laugh. “These children come from poor families, and because their parents insist on enrolling their children in the English medium of the school, the class is a mix of communities. There are Muslims, Tamilians, Maharashtrians, Gujaratis. But we speak to mixed classes in Hindi,” Vandana says.

Vandana is the overall coordinator of the Foundation’s work in this centre and another municipal school in the city, apart from supervising other works like their mobile toy van that goes to slum areas and the Sunday visits to hospitals in the city. Started in 1982 in Mumbai, the CTF is the only NGO of its kind to help set up 279 toy and games libraries in India till date.

But it clearly doesn’t matter what language the children are spoken to, because play hour is the best hour of the day for them, and the CTF’s toys and games class in this school is a source of much enjoyment and learning. Teachers, one to a group of six or seven children, hand each group a board game and play begins in earnest. “The CTF first trains the teachers, then the teachers teach the children in class. Once they understand the rules, they are very quick in mastering the game,” Vandana beams.

She shows me a curious little strategy game, where two players’ green and orange blocks must cut each other’s retreat around the board using short and long bridges in the respective colours. “It requires a lot of thinking and strategising. But class five students have already defeated me,” she laughs.

The next play hour belongs to the tiniest assortment of class one students I have ever seen. They trail in, some of the little girls’ pinafores hanging off their frail shoulders, but their eyes are already scanning the room for potential planned activity. But today, the teachers engage them in a group singing, after which they answer my questions and recite poetry in cute, high-pitched voices.

“The girls are normally a bit shy. When they’re at home, some of them do household chores and look after their siblings, so they grow up pretty quickly. But because we are kind to them, and because our common interests are games and toys, they bond with us very quickly. Many of the older girls have already told us about the problems between their parents and other such issues. The boys are very bindaas, but they don’t discuss their home situations too much,” Vandana says.

Diaries is a weekly series of stories on one issue. ‘Little People’ is a series of three stories on the education of underprivileged children in Mumbai. Look out for Part II tomorrow.

 

 

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‘There’s lust. And there are Chennai men’

Aditya Kshirsagar (24), really hates Chennai, and he’s taking the first flight home the moment he completes his media course.
Part I of the ‘Away from home’ Diaries.

I stay at Malad, near Inorbit Mall. I have been living there for the last five years. I left Mumbai on August 4 this year to pursue my masters in Journalism. I will specialise in Online Media. I still haven’t decided what I’m doing next, but I’m taking the first flight back home after completion of my course.

I had a very definite moment of parting with the city. That moment, when I stared at the Mumbai Airport board, did it for me. I knew one thing was certain – I would be returning very soon and for good. I got my admissions in the college at Chennai, post-that I was travelling back and forth because I needed to find an apartment in Chennai. Luckily, I found a good place in a central area of Chennai, Nungambakkam.

My first day, indeed my first week here were eased by the presence of many friends and well-wishers. One of them is a lady who is very special to me, and she basically took care of everything for me. My stay here has been made quite easy by her. So, there were no homesick moments or anything of the sort.

My typical day here? Let’s see – get up early, before the water goes away, bathe, skip breakfast, collect lunch, go to college by 0930 hours and stay there till 1800 hours. Come back home, contemplate dinner, no wants to cook, end up eating at a cheap eatery most of the nights. The place is called ‘Garage.’ This is what my week looks like, with a change on Sundays and public holidays. So yeah, it is less than exciting.

The list of what I don’t like about Chennai is a long one. I’ll just put it in points:

1) The way people in Chennai drive is horrible. Especially the MTC bus drivers, I swear there are times I have thought I would be crushed under one. I got my bike here and have not yet installed my mirrors, because it’s just a scary proposition to see that thing behind you.

2) Being called a North Indian. I don’t mind the word ‘North’ and I don’t have any geographical affiliations or likes or dislikes. But what hurts the most is the arrogance that people here display while saying the word. There was an instance where I was stopped by a senior police inspector and accused of being a thief, ‘like all other North Indians’.

3) The lack of a drainage system that leads to instant flooding of the roads.

4) Due to a lack of facilities, people here drink bottled water every day. Poor people here are dying of cholera, dengue, malaria and so on. They have a Cholera Hospital here. 

5) The way men stare at women. There is lust and then there are Chennai men; it’s beyond disgusting for women.

6) Rickshawwallahs. They charge Rs 200 or more for a distance of Borivali to Goregaon.

What I miss the most about Mumbai are its rickshawwallahs, its vada pav, varan bhat with toop and thecha, disciplined traffic, helpful people and cops, all the night eateries, and the safety for women and personal property. Yes, like several Mumbaikars I have also felt that I would leave the city for good some day, on several occasions. But home is where the smug is. I will go around, see the world or whatever, but my final resting place hopefully would be that bitch of a city.

The fast-paced life with a heterogenous crowd is very contagious. It’s not about the Mumbai spirit and hypothetical things like that. It is a place that you might physically leave, but somewhere that virus of being a Mumbaikar never leaves you.

Ah, Mumbai.

Diaries is a weekly series of stories on a single issue. The ‘Away from home’ diaries are stories of Mumbaikars who have left the city for a space of time.

 

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‘Winter brought homesickness…’

Sneha Kamat feels that if London wasn’t perpetually cold and rainy, it is actually an ideal city to live in.
Part II of the ‘Away from home’ series

The night of September 4, 2011 was a rather sleepless one. I was leaving for London the next day and the ball of anticipation in my stomach, coupled with dread, kept expanding.  At 27, I had finally mustered up the courage to quit my job of five years at a publication house to pursue a Masters in International Publishing Studies at City University, London. This was a particularly courageous year for me, because I also managed to get over my fears of matrimony and took the leap of faith in August. My husband works in London, so studying here made it a rather convenient move.

I left for the airport from my husband’s home, which in retrospect made me realise, was one of the chief reasons I effectively reined in the waterworks. It was indeed overwhelming; convincing myself that I shouldn’t fret because I’d see my family soon enough; besides trying in vain to pack a large part of my world into the two suitcase limit I was allowed by the airline. I stared vacantly at my startlingly empty closet. I’d never packed away so much before in my life. I’d never moved home, never taken a really long trip anywhere. This was in every which way, a first.

I walked out of Heathrow airport into a cold, crisp temperature of 17 degree Celsius. As someone who always prefers heat to cold, I wasn’t sure I liked this at all. I called my mum to tell her I’d reached safely. Of course, the first question she asked me was about the weather. “Feels like Lonavala, Ma,” I remember saying, in a rather fake, bright voice.

The next few days were about settling into my new home, adjusting to married life (that is not just a boring cliché!), and learning about the tube system in London, which would be my predominant mode of transport to the central part of the city, where my college is located. Now the best thing about the London Tube system is that even the most directionally-challenged person in the universe, and I’m a top contender for that spot, can figure it out within the course of a single day.

I started college within two weeks, and was immediately inundated with assignments and submissions. As someone who hadn’t been in the classroom for more than five years, staying awake during morning lectures became my first priority. I was also learning a very important art that must be mastered when one moves to a cold country – the Art of Layering! Thick leggings, thermal socks, cardigans, pullovers, jumpers, woolly scarves, gloves and loads and loads of tights, varying in thickness. This wardrobe makeover wasn’t to fulfil some girly whim; it was a necessity in every way if I wanted to feel my fingers and toes at the end of the day.

My first semester was exhausting. I was in class practically all day. And on weekends, in the library with my group members, breaking my head over project work. I live more than an hour away from college, so between all that work and travel, there wasn’t much time to mope or despair over how much I missed home. My gruelling schedule meant that I hadn’t even explored the city the way I’d planned to. But I knew it was in the offing and the onset of winter brought on the first wave of homesickness.

Winters here mean that it’s not just the cold that you’re dealing with. It gets dark by 3 pm and stays that way till sunrise the next morning. My body clock was a mess. I was often ready to go to bed by 6 pm, and waking up in the morning when it’s 5 degree Celsius outside is a tormenting task, especially for someone who detests mornings, early or otherwise. My semester had ended by then, but I had my written papers coming up soon after the New Year. One of the modules I was studying for was Publishing Law. I can positively state that between learning about inane acts and rights and dealing with the cold and the darkness, the festive Xmas and New Year period in London were among my worst weeks till then.

There were crying jags, there was massive abuse of calling cards, there was tremendous venting on the exasperated husband, and of course, panic attacks about writing exams after so long, especially that law paper. In all my years back home in Mumbai, I’d incessantly bitched about the heat, the traffic, the overworked-underpaid scenario and what not. But none of it mattered anymore. My Mumbai was my Mumbai. And I loved it a bit too much to care about anything else right then.

The manic behaviour ended with the exams, and I decided I’d take a trip back home in my rather long Easter break. One month in Mumbai, with my friends and family around me, stuffing myself with butter chicken and Gajalee’s prawn curry rice, and I was a happy camper again. Who needs spas and exotic holidays when you have your people to cheer you up!

I came back in March and settled back into college and routine and things have been a lot easier since then. I’ve slowly settled in to the London life. I’m more comfortable taking the tubes here than I ever was taking a train back home. There’s a lot of walking every day but my feet don’t hurt any more. My resistance to the cold has definitely gone up. I’ve found plenty of Indian shops where I can find many Indian goodies, including Parachute coconut oil and Marie biscuits. The city is a shopper’s paradise and I managed to undertake a fair bit of exploring this summer and some European travel too.

I love the quiet mornings, the lack of persistent honks, and the fact that I can almost always reach a place on time, without being a traffic jam victim as was my daily issue back home.

I might very well be coming back to Mumbai in a few years, but for now I’m looking forward to restarting my career here. London is slowly growing on me. It’s not home like Mumbai and I don’t know if it ever will be, but there’s something about this city that endears itself to you. In fact, if it wasn’t so cold and rainy most of the time, it’s quite the ideal city to live in.

I also believe life will become easier as I form a strong network of friends here. Sometimes I miss how easy it was to just call a friend and drop in to the neighbourhood cafe for a hot cup of coffee or share a muffin. Then again, home is where your people are. If I transported everyone I loved to London, maybe I wouldn’t miss Mumbai as much. So eventually it all comes down to forming your circle.

I look forward to my breaks back home, but I’m also learning to enjoy my time in London. Meanwhile, my quest for the best butter chicken in this city continues and I’ve vowed to enjoy it aplenty before I leave.

Sneha Kamat Bhavnani is a resident of 7 Bungalows, Andheri W. She’s just finished her MA in International Publishing Studies from City University, London and is awaiting her results. When she isn’t ranting about the London weather, you’ll find her indulging in her latest passion – online shopping! 

Diaries is a weekly series of stories on an issue. The ‘Away from home’ diaries are stories of Mumbaikars who have left the city for a space of time.

 

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‘Hyderabad’s best-kept secret is its weather’

Berges Malu moved to Hyderabad last year. There aren’t many pretty girls in Hyderabad, he says, and regionalism supersedes development there.
Part III of the ‘Away from home’ series

I’ve spent over 20 years of my life in Mumbai. I was born in Mumbai. I studied at St Xavier’s School (at Fort) and then at KC College. I’ve been in Hyderabad for over a year now.

I left Mumbai last year, in July, for Hyderabad to pursue my Masters Degree in Political Science. I got admission in a central university, which is among the best in the country.

The initial move to Hyderabad happened almost overnight. I got admission on July 16, 2011 and I was asked to join class the very next day. So I didn’t really have the time to think about the move, and that I was leaving Mumbai, so much. The one memory I do have though, is at Mumbai airport; my flight was delayed due to the rains and the rains in Mumbai were massive that day, you could barely see the wingtips! But Hyderabad was sunny and fine!

My first week in Hyderabad was crazy! Thanks to the delayed flight, I didn’t get a hostel room for all of the first week. Then began a few days of the Telangana strikes, and I had to spend the next few nights with friends who worked at Google. I wasn’t very excited about that.

Hyderabad is a great city, it’s got the charm of a small town but the features of a major city. The food is good as well, but Hyderabad’s best-kept secret is probably it’s weather. Save for the summer months of April and May, Hyderabad has a very moderate dry climate, it’s very pleasant. Which makes me very whiny when I get back to Mumbai and find how sweaty it is!

But there’s not much to hate about Hyderabad. Sure, this city literally shuts by 11 pm, the lack of cabs is unnerving for the first few months you’re here, and there’s a serious lack of pretty girls here! But nothing serious enough to incite dislike.

Oh yes, I surely do miss Mumbai! The fact that I can walk around south Mumbai at any point in time, I have some really close friends there and there’s an entire atmosphere of having fun and being carefree that isn’t quite present in Hyderabad. Mumbai is brilliant! Its people are so energetic, its culture is very warm and its politics, very intriguing. There are multiple issues out here in Hyderabad, especially the development issues which are sidestepped and instead regional or religious issues are given more attention, that’s a bit disconcerting.

If given a chance to shift outside of Mumbai permanently, I would certainly accept it. Mumbai is a great city, but I often find exploring other cities is a lot of fun, and it widens your horizons. I’m going to get done with my MA degree and look for a job before I move to another country to pursue another degree.

Berges Malu is a south Mumbai resident. He is currently pursuing an MA in political science at the University of Hyderabad. When he isn’t pretending to study, he tries to be the neighbourhood superhero. 

 

 Diaries is a weekly series of stories on an issue. The ‘Away from home’ diaries are stories of Mumbaikars who have left the city for a space of time.
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