118 children of rag-pickers join school in Bhubaneswar

Photo Courtesy: Sangram K Das Mohapatra

BHUBANESWAR: As a positive change in the city, the rag-pickers have sent their children to schools to make them educated like other kids instead of engaging them in the menial job.

During the period of enrolment campaign of the Government, the slum-level community meetings persuaded the people to enrol their children in schools. As a result, 118 children have joined different schools during the period of the Prabesha Utsav-2015 conducted by the School and Mass Education Department as part of the process under the Right to Education Act.

City-based NGO Centre for Child and Women Development (CCWD), mobilised the slum-level committees to make the rag-pickers aware about the value of education and its need in the lives of their kids.

The NGO with the help of the Bernard Van Leer foundation formed seven child clubs along with a State-level federation, the Bhubaneswar Abarjana Gotali Mahasangha, to develop a platform for the rights of rag-pickers. Through the federation and clubs, the organisation convinced the waste gathering workers to send their children to school.

The 118 children including dropouts, rag-pickers, irregular and newcomers were admitted in the primary schools at Goutam Nagar, NAC Colony, Textbook Press, Raghunath Nagar and Budheswari Colony in the city, said CCWD secretary Sadasiv Swain.

According to the CCWD’s slum mobiliser Debabrata Mahunta, most of the parents didn’t go out on the enrolment day in order to send their kids in schools. Mahunta expressed happiness over the school management committees and teachers for encouraging little children along with parents for the good step.

On enrolment of children of waste workers’ families, Dumuduma Raghunath Nagar Primary School Headmistress Sarojini Swain said sensitisation is more essential and parents should take responsibility to send their children to school regularly. 

C Bhabani Reddy, a kid of a rag-picker from Ashok Nagar, was happy while entering to the school with his other friends. The boy, whose joy for attending the school knew no bound, said he would come to school every day.