Our first centre

7 years since our first class at Dada Dev Mandir centre 

It all started with a not-so-routine trip to a temple close by with my husband, Satish. While we were impressed with the vast area it has, we were also aghast to see a long line of beggars outside, sitting in a row. What was most disturbing was to see many children among them. They were shabbily dressed, dirty and very demanding. On close observation, some of them even looked high on some sort of substance. They had packets with them to keep donated food items i.e. puris, sabji and laddoos separately. Still their first choice was money. “Give me 10 Rs”, was what most of them were screaming. 

While I was getting irritated with them, my husband threw me a challenge, “Why don’t you do something for them?” He knows it well that I hate this begging culture and given a chance, I will provide them some employment rather than giving them some money and just walking away. I feel giving money is a short term solution and this way we encourage them to remain beggars for the rest of their lives. But that may work with adults, what to do with these young children? Education might be a solution but will they like to go to school? 

The next few weeks, I spent in getting to know them well. What I understood was not very encouraging. They are made to sit there by their parents, most of whom are casual labours. Mandir is a safe place and visitors coming there are in a very generous mood. So it solves two purposes - one is that mandir premises serve the purpose of a crèche and second is that by sitting there children “earn” food for the family. Whatever they get in cash, they use it to buy chips, cold drinks or sometimes even drugs to sniff! Obviously neither the parents nor the children are in a mood to attend school and why would they? After thinking logically we realised that we have to make sure that the teaching takes place here only, as they will not move from here. 

Setu education centre at Dada Dev Mandir

So we started looking for a teacher, who can come to the mandir to teach. We heard of a young girl who was a wheel chair user and lived close by. When I spoke with her I found out that she is class 8th pass. I offered her this job to come and teach these children every day for one hour. She couldn’t believe it! Her confidence level was so low that she asked her 10 years old brother to call me back and say that his “didi” can’t work as she is not sure if she will be able to teach. 

The girl, Simi, was a polio victim and hardly attended school. One can imagine how difficult it must have been for her to be on a wheel chair (or crawl on the floor) in a Govt school. She barely attended classes and just manged to pass class 8 and was sitting at home for almost 9 years. Still she came out as a kind-hearted shy girl who was keen to learn. I assured her that I will brush up her knowledge and guide her in teaching, but my only condition was that she should be nice to children. No screaming, no shouting and of course no punishment. 

This experiment worked wonders. Simi was overwhelmed by the affection she was getting from these children and they were basking in the love they were getting from this didi. Most of them had some very bitter experience of some school and short tempered teachers, which had killed their interest in formal education forever. Now they were learning something in their own environment, in a fun filled atmosphere and were loving it! 

Simi teaching the students

Soon they started looking forward to their class time, they would run to see me or Simi and call each other to come quickly. Children being children, they loved the feel of brand new note books and pencils. Soon they were proud owners of bags with a proper pencils box and, oh!, their very own crayon colours! Taking parents’ consent was more difficult. Very few of them were happy with this arrangement, rest were pacified after knowing that if anyone gives them anything they are allowed to accept (though quietly I would tell the donors to buy any stationary item, instead of giving them cash). 

An outdoor class

The reaction of the visitors was amazing. Most of them were extremely happy to see them studying and gave very positive inputs. Barring few employees, even mandir staff was very helpful and appreciated the initiative. Long back the places of worship were also considered the place of learning! 

It has been 7 years. We have replicated this experiment at many other places. All we need is a set of non-school going children and a willing teacher from the same locality (with preference given to a differently able person). 

Setu has enrolled hundreds of children to main stream schools and continue giving them free tuitions in the evening. Things are much more stream lined now. But our first centre for this project, which became famous as "जहाँ मैम फीस भी नहीं लेंती है और मारती भी नहीं है! (jahan maam fees bhi nahi leti hai aur marti bhi nahi hain!)" will always remain special for us.

Poonam Tyagi 

Founder Director Setu NGO