Educate Children Living on Construction Sites

Migration poses unique challenges in extending any support to our children living on construction sites, mainly because they are constantly on the move – from one construction site to another, and from one city to another. Almost three-fourth of the children who are enrolled at our day care centres stay with us for less than six months making it very hard to measure impact of our programmes using quantitative methods. MMC documented its impact in an innovative way by asking children how their lives would have been without MMC, in Hindi, “Agar MMC Nahi Hota Toh.” Children created vibrant paintings to depict how their lives would be without MMC. Through the paintings and narratives, children described how MMC provides a sanctuary from harsh conditions on the construction sites.

Gurfan (9 years)

Gurfan is a shy nine-year-old who doesn’t really like to talk much. But the picture this young boy from Bihar painted is worth a thousand words. Gurfan drew how Agar MMC Nahi Hota Toh, he along with other children would have played on the construction ground, and probably got injured by falling bricks or debris. Gurfan moved to Mumbai three years ago and has been attending the MMC centre for the past one year.

Saheli (13 years)

Saheli’s parents migrated from the Sangli district in Maharashtra almost seven years earlier, but it was only in 2013 that Saheli came in contact with MMC’s day care centre. Thirteen-year-old Saheli made a painting of the time when there was no MMC centre at their construction site. The painting depicts, Agar MMC Nahi Hota Toh Saheli and her brother would have been standing helplessly whenever it rained. Saheli said: “As our parents would lock the house and go for work, we would spend our time loitering here and there. When it would rain, we would get drenched because there was nowhere to go. We would roam outside in the rain and in the scorching sun. MMC protects us all and teaches us good things and makes us literate.” Saheli’s teacher says that she is studious, has beautiful handwriting, and her favourite subject is English. 

Sarita (9 years)

Agar MMC Nahi Hota Toh, nine-year-old Sarita would have had to spend her days at home doing chores like sweeping the floor, washing clothes, and getting water from the neighbourhood tap. Attending school would have been impossible. But eight years ago, Sarita’s parents moved to Mumbai from Chhattisgarh in search of work, and after they started working at the current construction site, Sarita got enrolled to MMC’s day care centre. Sarita now regularly attends the nearby municipal school too.

She says MMC gave her a better opportunity to study – not just because it helped her enter a municipal school, but also because of MMC’s active after-school support programme. Though Sarita loves to study at her school, she really enjoys the topics covered every month at the centre. MMC’s internal curriculum follows a theme-based approach where a new theme is introduced every month and teachers use local materials to plan creative lessons to make education an enjoyable experience. Hence Sarita says, “We can’t learn all those things in school which are taught here”. She says, “In other schools we will just go and study. We can’t have that sort of fun which we generally have here.”

MMC’s greatest impact can be seen in how the children attending MMC’s day care centres enjoy their childhood the way it is meant to be.