Help disadvantaged Bengali children + young people

Whenever I visit the New Life Centre school my friend Alindra Naskar, the school’s founder, always takes me out walking around the local vicinity meeting the locals. This photo was taken on such a walk. Everyone is delighted to see us, whether they know Alindra or not, and they usually insist on us having a drink and some snacks with them. This lady as you can see has her hands full, but as usual we are greeted with smiles of welcome and everything else is put aside whilst chairs are brought out for us to sit on and refreshments served.

At these times I cannot help but compare what would happen in my local vicinity if Alindra visited me. Obviously the weather makes a huge difference to the lifestyle of the locals in West Bengal as they tend to spend most of their time outdoors and only really use their homes for sleeping in. Even cooking takes place outside as seen here.

But even if we were meeting neighbours here in the UK would they be so hospitable? What is it about this poor community that they want to share what little they have with you?

Unfortunately my life experience has taught me that generally the more people have the keener they are to hold on to it for themselves. The less people have, the more they seem willing to share it with others.

Alindra Naskar has taken this metaphor to heart and the education he received he wants to share with as many children as possible, which is why the New Life Centre school now has over 500 children. My son talked to me once about ‘Checking your privilege’, a phrase I hadn’t heard before. It seems an important phrase for our times when our society in the West seems more polarised than ever. What seems ironic is that the disadvantaged of this poor village in Bengal don’t ask it of themselves, as the answer would be too painful. And yet they still keep giving.

Wouldn’t you like to share your privilege with others?

The parents of the children at the New Life Centre School have married young. When I was there last year I was told a typical story of the parents of one of the girls in the school. Her father saw her mother when she was in Standard 8, 13 – 14 years old and he told her he wanted to marry her. She refused for a long time as she wanted to continue her education, but he was persistent and eventually she dropped out of school and they were married at 15.

They are happily married but the mother is insistent that her daughter will remain in the school and not drop out like she did. Alindra Naskar the Director of the school, as a father of 3 highly educated daughters is very keen that the girls should remain in school, as they are the future of the country he says, as mothers they will educate their families and lead by example. Education will literally save lives for according to the United Nations Girls Education Initiative, children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of five!

The older girls in the school can be seen here and they are given every encouragement at the New Life Centre to carry on with their studies, including remaining at the school for extra curricular studies until the parents are able to escort the girls home. Parents are afraid of their young daughters wandering around the village, as girls have been known to be kidnapped from this area as it is close to the Bangladesh border, but also with Alindra’s encouragement and the understanding of mothers such as the one I spoke of at the beginning of this, parents are becoming enlightened to the prospect of their daughters having choices about their future.

As Barack Obama said when addressing the UN Assembly in 2012, ‘The future …………must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams, just like our sons’.

Wouldn’t you like to help empower these girls?