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Our Mission |
Project WHY was conceived to answer a series of queries:
- Why do children from underprivileged backgrounds perform poorly?
- What could be done to enhance their performance?
- What skills should be taught to them to better their employment options?
- How could this be achieved in a replicable community driven model?
Project WHY started with 40 children and spoken English classes.
Today it reaches out to over 500 children and runs two early education programmes, one prep class, four primary and one secondary after school support progarmmes, a day care and life skills programme for 20 children with disabilities as well as a computer centre.
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A Story Retold |
Project WHY began with 40 children and a handful of volunteers teaching them
spoken English. As time went by, numerous challenges arose, and to each
challenge, the answer was a new activity. The number of children
increased, their demands multiplied, new teachers were discovered within the
tiny jhuggis and lanes, ad hoc classrooms had to be found. Parks were cleaned,
tents put up, unused pavements cleared, any place would do, but no child was
ever sent away sent away. Giri Nagar, Shiv Mandir Camp, Okhla phase I and II,
Sanjay Colony, Sangam Vihar, the children came from far flung places.. But
somewhere along the way, projectWHY gifted us planetWHY.
A strange but
beautiful land that brings together different parts of India, different social
and economic strata of society, different forms of worship and faith under one
invisible roof big enough to hold everyone together. Often ties and bond are
strengthened by sharing pain and anguish. Problems bring us close and solutions
are found together. Moment of sorrow are shared as well as times of joy. And
each day our little planet grows..
Employ
From the very outset we decided to draw all resources from within the community as we felt that education can only have a true meaning if it is independent of extraneous factor, hence it was decided to find teachers from within. Though the staff may not at first seem qualified in a conventional manner, it has found to be most appropriate for several reasons. First of all it is an extremely motivated group as it has been given recognition it never had. Secondly belonging to the same social background it is able to understand the problems faced by the children and above all being totally different from the 'image' of the teacher the child has, it is able to garner the confidence of the child. Hence Project Why has created over 30 'new' jobs within the community it works with. Team Project Why is a winning team and you can meet them here.
Empower
But the true success of Project Why lies in its ability to empower the community
to take on their responsibilities and show them how to find solutions within the
existing context. We realised very early that invisible barriers existed - be
they caste or creed - and our first venture was to break those barriers and make
planet why a true reflection of an ideal India. It is for us a mater of
pride to see that communities that barely interacted slowly learnt to discover
each other and respect one another. In our quest to make citizenIndia a reality
a number of awareness initiatives were launched as a first step towards
empowerment. Read about some of our special projects:
- Right to Information workshops launched in collaboration with Parivartaan.
- The water bearers launched in collaboration with the GoodNewsIndia foundation.
- Why on waves when Project Why turned donor and helped raise money for a fishing boat in a tsunami hit village.