Child Protection India Project #11908

School to School - Connect Urban & Rural Children

by GOONJ

Project Report | Sep 23, 2019
Dignifying Giving with school children in Bihar

By Anshu Gupta | Founder

Lalganj is a quaint village in Vaishali district of Bihar.. one of the first districts where Goonj started working more than 10 years ago, just after the Kosi Floods. Over the years Goonj’s work has grown deeper especially in flood prone areas of the state. When our team visited a local Aanganwadi and primary school in Lalganj the sight of kids walking barefoot, wearing shoes or slippers with loose straps or sandals with broken heels, was common. We were told this is how they come to school even in harsh winter or rain. On asking a fourth grader about his torn uniform, he nervously muttered “Father drinks toddy (local alcoholic beer).” and he ran off to duck any further interaction.

Children’s mind is a blank slate without any prejudices, inhibitions and conditioning and that’s why their immediate surroundings, parents & teachers play huge role in their development. At Goonj we strongly believe that like city school kids, kids in small village schools must also learn about self reliance, collective responsibility and self empowerment rather than charity and dependency.

Since we already had an ongoing connect with the local community of Lalganj we quickly mobilized the villagers, parents, teachers and kids and motivated them to collectively take up a massive cleanliness drive around their school premises. For their efforts on making their children’s school a better place, each participant received a carefully curated ‘Goonj School Kit’ comprising basic school material, stationary, toys and a pair of new shoes. Saraswati, from the village said about the work, “It was different... People who normally don’t take part in anything actually turned up for this.” We believe that the world revolves around love, empathy and valuing human dignity and our children must imbibe these values to be better citizens of future

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