Suraj Goes To School

Education
By Zarina Khatoon and Ankur Raushan
09 Aug, 2022

We work with mother's group in Jharkhand along with children and schools and this is how we came across Suraj Lohra. Ten-year-old Suraj Lohra was an out of school child. His parents are migrant labourers who migrate to Varanasi in October and return around June or July. Both the parents work at the brick kiln. Suraj travels with them and he has no school to go to for the months he is in his village Brinda Nawa Toli in Gumla district.

We met with Suraj's parents to convince them to send him to school. The parents were reluctant. They said since they had no land to cultivate, their only source of income was migrating for work at the brick kiln and taking their son along with them.

We met them over several days and explained how their child will continue to be a migrant labourer if he was deprived education and he will never have a shot to build a better future for himself. The fact that they were working so hard would go in vain if they were unable to educate their son and give him a fighting chance to improve his life.

They understood our point. The parents said that they would try and gain employment close by so that Suraj will not have to move with them and they would enrol him in a school and ensure that he never misses school. The we went and met Audil Ekka, the principal of the Primary Education Urmi River Toli school. Suraj has not only gained admission in the school, he never misses a class.

We run 51 Mohalla Classes in 7 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand—Raebareli, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Gumla and Lohardaga—and have 1166 children attending them. In Lohardaga, we are running 4 Mohalla Classes where 75 children are attending these Classes.

As of May end, we enrolled 1081 out of school children in 7 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. First with the sustained efforts of the Mohalla Classes and later with a dogged enrolment drive in 7 districts, these children now have a shot at a better future.

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