Street to School - Mainstreaming Street Children

We would like to begin with a big 'thank you' for the faith that you have placed in our work. Your magnanimous support has enabled us to enhance the scope and quality of our work, charting us to areas where the marginalised can be seen but are largely forgotten.

The infrastructure development in Dehradun city continues to draw migrant workers from other cities and states for livelihood opportunities. Children of these workers move along construction sites with their families. Interestingly, even though some of these children may be enrolled in their native village school, they have no access to education and remain absent for long periods of time and eventually drop out. Hence, the children of these migrant labourers remain deprived of their basic right to education.

Chuna Bhatta in Dehradun city is one such area where many migrant families have settled. As a response, Aasraa launched it new mobile learning project at Chuna Bhatta in August 2018. Our outreach team collects and brings children to the bus for mobile classroom learning. 25 out-of-school children, mostly aged between 6-8 years, are presently attending the project.

Subjects include Hindi, English and Mathematics. Computer Aided Learning (CAL), through a 40-inch LED TV screen installed in the bus, enables children to learn concepts faster and better. Attracted to the visual method of learning, children happily flock together to learn with greater interests. Nutrition in the form of banana is provided to all children.

The project in Chuna Bhatta has enabled us to bring the out-of-school children into education. We initially struggled to convince the families but our incessant efforts grew our project from 4 to 25 regular children in a short time. Our outreach efforts ensure that no child in the community is left without education.

Aasraa is highly indebted to all its well-wishers and supporters like you. You have enabled us to extend our support to 2,885 children today; from working in one slum with a motley group of 40 odd children to working with children from slums across the length and breadth of Dehradun. Our heartfelt gratitude for backing our endeavours and helping us pursue our dream of education for all.

Aasraa Trust reached another milestone in August 2018. We signed our much-awaited Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State Department of School Education. The MoU affiliates all of our Street Smart projects as the Non-Residential Special Training (NRST) Centres under ‘Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan’ (SSA) for the out of school children aged 6-14 years. SSA is an Integrated Scheme of the government to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.

We are now a proud implementation partner of the SSA to prepare the underprivileged children for mainstreaming as per their age appropriate levels in Dehradun. Almost 200 children have been currently enrolled under the NRST program at Aasraa.

Taking forward our association with the government, we initiated another project at a government school to provide quality education to slum and street children. 85 children were mainstreamed into the Government Primary School on Chakrata Road for the academic year 2018-19. This brings the total strength of the school to 114.

With the kind permission of the Department of Education and generous support of individual and group donors, Aasraa renovated the government school building and gave it a new face. The school now looks spacious, brighter and cleaner.

Computer Aided Learning (CAL) is one of the important components of the project. We have installed a 50-inch LED screen dedicated to the CAL program. We have set a computer centre with 12 systems to introduce digital literacy to all students.

We have 5 qualified teachers and 2 helpers at the centre. Subjects include Hindi, English, Mathematics, Environmental Science and Computer Education.

Our children are growing and so are we… we attribute our success and achievements to our valuable donors and well-wishers like you. Thank you very much for helping us in our journey so far!