What do we do?

Part of the things we do have already been mentioned in the last post. This is a more comprehensive post with the events and activities we and our students undertake. There are also details about the current status of the initiative.


As already mentioned, we are proud to announce that 14 more students have started going to Sahjanand school which is a main-stream private school not very far from the campus. This is in continuation of our efforts to bring the street children into the formal education system. I would like to remind that last year, 17 students joined the Sahjanand school and they have done well in studies. The school authorities are glad that the experiment is working and so have extended the support further by incorporating more students.

The new students have started going to school and all arrangements have been made. These include school fees, transportation to and fro from the school, school uniform, textbooks, notebooks and stationary, etc.

The admission of students into mainstream school which started last year, has also helped in containing the dropout rates. Over the last couple of months, we have realized that we might be running close to full capacity, given the current infrastructure, in terms of children we can help in an effective manner. So, for the time being, we have stopped adding any more students to the initiative and have freezed the number at 55 (including those which are already going to Sahjanand). We have come to the conclusion that it would be better to keep the efforts small and sustainable, rather than becoming too big and facing the risk of shutdown and thereby affecting the lives of all the children.


Other events
Prayaas aims at all round development of students. So while we stress on attendance at the school, we break the monotony through activities:

Prayaas organized a blood and a general health check up camp in association with the Rotary Club of Ahmedabad. The medicines prescribed to the children in these camps were sponsored by Prayaas. The volunteers also ensured that children have their medicines regularly and in future prevent the nutritional deficiency. A second health workshop was organized with help from the Armed Forces Batch of 2008.

There were regular features like drama, card making and art workshops. A professional drama workshop for the children was also organized by the Eklavya School especially for Prayaas kids.

The kids also enjoyed "Jajantaram Mamantaram" and "Om Shanti Om" specially screened for them at IIM.

Prayaas volunteers celebrated Holi, Dushahra, Deepawali and Christmas with the kids. The kids contributed to the festivities by unleashing their creativity for the preparation and decoration.

The annual sports day at IIM was an instant hit with the kids. They had races, football match, kabaddi and lots more.

Prayaas students put up a brilliant dance show at IIMA's annual cultural festival - Chaos. This show was in collaboration with an NGO - Arzoo. The cards made by the kids were also put up for sale in this event and were widely appreciated.


Apart from these we try to take the children to specific field trips as and when possible and if we get an appropriate opportunity.