“Many times I was wandering on the street with empty stomach, I was thinking this is my end life, I can’t study anymore, every day my dad was with tension, there was no peace in our family, every day my mum used to cry.”
Ten-year-old *Nakula spent much of lockdown begging at the railway station, as her parents had lost their jobs.
Only the visits of the local GCare team stopped her from feeling completely overwhelmed. They provided study books, encouraged her to keep learning and gave the family food parcels until the centre re-opened. She had no mobile device, so couldn’t access online education.
“We were in the darkness, because of Global Care we came out of darkness. Now I am happy in the school, thank you Global Care for your help for unprivileged children.”
Our partners in Patripul feared many children would drop out of school completely after India’s second lockdown in early 2021. Initially they were right; just three children returned to our centres in Patripul when they re-opened in July. Many were working.
But when the team began feeding the children in attendance, numbers soared. By the end of the year, even after feeding ended, there were 230 children attending the GCare Centres, 176 of whom are also now back in school.
The team say: “When starvation came on the families they kept education away, they gave priority to fill their stomachs. But when we started to fill their stomach, children started to come to centre and go to school.”
The team are working particularly hard to help girls back into education. They noticed that where parents could only afford to send one child to school, they were prioritising sons. Of the 230 children at the GCare Centres, 95 are girls. 25 students have disabilities.
The Patripul team are wholly committed to the welfare of the children and have made many life-changing and life-saving interventions for families throughout the pandemic. They have helped families access medical treatment, including paying for oxygen when a hospital refused admittance to a Dalit mum who could not pay. They supported a mum who tried to commit suicide when life with her husband became unbearable, after he lost his job in lockdown. Again and again they have advocated for children sent out to work, or to beg.
*Surabhi is a bright girl who was succeeding at school until her father died from Covid-19. This left Surabhi and her mum with the sole responsibility for her elderly grandparents and three-year-old brother. Mum immediately sent Surabhi out to work as they had no income for food or her grandparents’ medical expenses. Only after the GCare team began providing food packages did Mum allow Surabhi back to the centre and to school. .
Help us continue to help the Dalit children of Patripul to cope with the effects of the pandemic, as well as entrenched discrimination and poverty.
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