Who is Reaping the Benefits of India’s High Economic Growth?

दयाशंकर ने स्कूल में पढ़ाई शुरू कर कहा कि “अब मैं चाय बेच कर अपने समय को नहीं बर्बाद करूंगा। मुझे पढ़ लिख कर एक बड़ा आदमी बनना है।“  वर्ष 2021 में, ऑक्सफैम इंडिया द्वारा उत्तर प्रदेश के छः जिलों के 104 ग्राम पंचायतों से 104 शाला से बाहर बच्चों का चिन्न्हिकरण किया गया था, जिसमें तकरीबन 5% बच्चे पूर्ण रूप से बाल मज़दूरी में लिप्त थे। चिन्न्हिकरण के पश्चात सभी बच्चों को विद्यालय में लाने की मुहिम जारी की गयी। चुकी बच्चों के सीख का स्तर अत्यंत कम था, उनके लिये मोहल्ला क्लास के माध्यम से ब्रिज क्लास दिया गया।

When we met Shanu a couple of months ago, he had said, “ab samosa nahi, ganit ke sawal banaoonga”. He stopped working at his uncle’s; this was also made possible by some amount of counselling for the uncle and the rest of the families as well. The child who could barely draw a straight like to write the alphabet until six months ago could now sign forms for an adhaar card that would help him get admission to an age-appropriate class in a nearby school. Shanu is now enrolled in class 5 in Haswa-I Composite Vidyalaya in Haswa village. And he continues to attend the Mohalla Classes!

Monu (13) and Sonu (11), two brothers, were working in a brick kiln with their parents. They would have continued working and would be pushed permanently into child labour had it not been for our community mobilisers who have been tracking out of school children and enrolling them in schools.

Sachin is now a student of Manna Lal Inter College, Fatehpur (Government College) in class 6th. He loves to go to school daily. Had it not been due to the persistent effort of our community mobiliser Priya not only would he have dropped out of school permanently, he would have become a child labour.