BELIEF is a not-for-profit organization, recently started by a few young professionals who passionately want to change the existing condition of slums. We regularly visit some slums in Pune. Here are the glimpses of our observations in the last month.

In a Marathi medium municipal school, students having different mother tongues like Marathi, Hindi, Lamani, Odisi and Kannada are in one classroom. In such situation, it is very difficult for teachers to communicate while teaching.

“I don’t like to learn history and languages. Kuchh samajata nahi hai !” – A 10 year old student from an immigrant, non-Marathi family.

Parvati is migrated from a north Indian state. She is literate and very enthusiastic to work and earn for her family. She wishes that her children get better education than what she received. But her alcohol addict husband doesn’t allow her to work. “There are so many women in the slum just like me” Parvati adds further. Can Parvati get an opportunity to work ?

Both of the parents of some students do labor work whole day and there’s no one in the house to take care of them, take them to school regularly and keep them away from addictions. Some children smoke and even drink even in school premises.

“ We are really confused about which language to be used in the classroom. Ours is an English medium school where all classrooms are multilingual. No one has even asked for the problems we face while teaching!” – Almost all the teachers in schools responded like this!

While visiting the slums and talking to children living there, one question constantly comes in our mind, “Is this their fault that they are deprived ? Is this their fault that they can’t experience the joy of learning ? Those innocent faces drag our feet towards their small vastis and motivate us to experience the beauty of co-learning, the beauty of
sharing. We believe that this journey is definitely going to be meaningful.

Let’s be a part of it; by wishing, blessing and supporting !