A Techie's Dream Of Hunger Free India Is Feeding Over 1000 Slum Children, Providing Education

On the evening of March 24, 2020, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown, Nilay Agarwal, was standing on the balcony of his high-rise flat in Gurugram.

From there he could see a nearby slum where the residents had been sent into panic mode after the news of the lockdown reached them.

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Over the next few days, as the plight of the slum-dwellers, who were mostly daily wage-earning migrant workers became clear, Agarwal, who is also the founder of a young NGO, decided to Vishalakshi Foundation decided to provide them some help, in the form of food.

Grim statistics

"We had started Vishalakshi Foundation in January 2019, with a thought that no one should sleep with an empty stomach. During my work, which involves a lot of research, I found that in India every day 7,000 people die of hunger, out of which 3,000 are children. These are people dying of hunger, the number of those sleeping hungry will be more than 20 crores. When we say that someone died of hunger, it means that the person has starved for days or weeks before the painful death. Our aim was to do whatever we can to bring these figures down," Agarwal told Indiatimes.

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With the volunteers of the Vishalakshi Foundation, Agarwal visited the slum and began distributing food for the migrant workers who were stranded there with no income.

It was during such visits to the slum Agarwal noticed a large number of children there. Upon enquiring, Agarwal learned that none of them have ever been to a school and are illiterate as giving them education was not among the priorities of their parents.

So, Agarwal proposed to set up a school for the children, next to the shanties itself.

Dream School

That is how 'Dream School' was born...

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After coaxing and a lot of convincing a few parents began sending their children to the 'school'.

"It was not easy. A lot of the parents in the slum had never thought of sending their children to a school, either because they could not afford it or they felt it was unnecessary. These people have money to feed their addictions, but not to educate their children. So we offered them that we will take care of all their needs, including books and other stationery, and provide them with proper mid-day meals which the parents could not," Agarwal said.

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The initial days, Agarwal said, it was tough as the students had not even received basic training. So he and his colleague had to impart such basic including the need of tasking bath and washing their hands.

Bribing students to school

"When we started we literally had to bribe the children to come to school, with cookies, toys, ice cream and more just for coming to the school. We even gave them pizzas and burgers which they had not even heard of before. We started from scratch and taught them how to come to school, how to sit in the school, we taught them what good morning is, what good afternoon is, before we taught them what alphabet and numbers are" he said.

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The lesson at Dream School include basic reading and wring in Hindi and English, Mathematics poems. Along with this, the children are also given training in physical education and yoga.

Shivnath, a 24-year-old from South 24 Parganas, who came to Delhi nearly a decade ago and was doing odd jobs till last year is now the full-time 'teacher' for more than 150 students at the Dream School.

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"We are run entirely by volunteers who are mostly in the early days of their career or college students. We have reached here due to their goodwill. When we came up with the idea of Dream School here, we came across Shivnath who also lives in the same slum and used to teach the children in his free time, because he liked doing it. So we asked him if he was willing to do it full-time and offered to pay him for it. He readily agreed and became our first employee. We have one more person to assist him, a woman who does the cleaning of the school and the students' mid-day meal plates, two people to prepare the food and transport as paid staff, and everything else is done by some 3,000 volunteers" Agarwal said.

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Growing dream

Since its inception last year, Dream School has grown into other locations - one more in Gurugram, Bawana and Kashmiri Gate in Delhi and one in Agarwal's hometown Lucknow and has over 1000 students.

Thanks to the efforts of the Vishalakshi Foundation, some 28 students from Dream School Gurugram have been admitted to a government school in the neighbourhood and a few to an English medium school, with all expenses paid by the NGO.

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Donate Rs 20, to feed a student

Agarwal who is a Mechanical Engineer by training and comes from an ordinary family in Lucknow, consisting of his parents and younger brother said that Dream School has managed to make a difference in the lives of over a thousand students due to ordinary people who make seemingly insignificant contributions.

"We are a small NGO and we do not have any corporate funding. Whatever we have done is with the support of ordinary people. We are asking for donations of as little as Rs 20, which is the cost of one mid-day meal. This way, we hope that someone who feels like doing something for the poor, but is unsure if they can afford it can also contribute to keeping our students well-fed. Most of our funding comes in the form of small contributions through our 3000 volunteers," he said.

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A personal tragedy

Agarwal, who comes from an ordinary middle-class family said that it was a personal tragedy that motivated him to become a social worker, something that has always been on the back of his mind.

"I always wanted to do something for the poor but had no direction on it. I was also under the impression that my earning won't be enough to do it. So I kept postponing it indefinitely. In September 2018, a friend called me to inform me that she was getting married and wanted me to organize her bachelor's party and I agreed. And three days later I got a call saying that she met with an accident. She had slipped into a coma and despite the best efforts, she died after two days. This left me shattered and I also realised how unpredictable life can be, and even I can be in that situation one day. If I had to fulfill my dreams of helping the needy, tomorrow will be late and today is the day. So I got the NGO registered as Vishalakshi Foundation, a tribute to my good friend who just left us and made me realise how unpredictable life can be," he said.

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Today, the 28-year-old juggles between his work as a techie and running the NGO. According to Agarwal, he had to make some sacrifices including not attending parties, events, and family functions to focus on helping others but added that the results of the sacrifices he made are more fulfilling than anything could have offered him.

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