July 4th

The children do not go to the project on a Sunday - it is their day off - however, I was still up early as it was the end of the holidays for Utpal as he was going back to boarding school until November.

As a bit of background, I shall explain Utpal's amazing story.
Utpal's parents moved next door to the Project Why centre when he was very young and they planned on putting him in the Project creche at age 1. However, when he was just 11 months something terrible happened - his mother was a drunk and he was a product of a drunken brawl so he never knew his real father. When he was just 11 months old, his mother was cooking in a wok, but as their house was so small this was placed right next to Utpal's bed - she walked out of the house and Utpal woke up and fell in the wok - he suffered third degree burns on his head, his arms and his chest - he lost half a lung and was sent home from the hospital with a note saying "Chances of survival: Nil" However, he did survive and with the help of many people is now a happy child and is being sponsored to go to boarding school in a more rural area of Delhi.

This brings me onto the topic of boarding schools in India. Boarding schools are seen as something that is only for the richest children from wealthy backgrounds - most boarding schools are around 25000 rupees a month (350 quid). The state of the government education here is very poor and children do not receive more than half a day of education unless they are in boarding school or part of projects such as Project Why - the most shocking thing that I found out today was that when Anou asked for funding for the slum children to go to boarding school from Indian people the response was simply; "why are you spending so much money on these children? They are slum children" This kind of attitude is what NGOs such as Project Why face day to day and you just get the impression that so much more could be done for these children if only the mentality of the population changed.

The boarding school that Utpal goes to is very different to most of the boarding schools - it is in a rural area of Delhi so the air is cleaner, and there are all sorts of sports that they can play and there is a really friendly family feel about the place - they are fed well and looked after well, and all of their grades are As or Bs showing that these kids do have potential but so many children like these do not even get the chance to try to make a life for themselves. The school is only 85 quid a month per child and that includes everything - there are no hidden costs. For just 85 quid a month these children can have the chance to fulfil their potential - the sad truth is that there just is not the funding from within India to sponsor these children - my aim when I get home would be to try to increase the number of sponsors from the UK - it really is such a worthy cause.

There have been some improvements in the other boarding schools in that the government ruled that 20% of the places must go to underprivileged children - but one child Kiran (whose mother had to pay about 350 quid as an underhand payment to get her into the school) told us that some meals and snacks do not get given to those who do not pay - the system is far from inclusive - yet when you look at schools like Utpal's it is clear that the boarding schools can work, but there is such corruption and a poor mentality towards these slum children that so many are simply left to stay at home and never do what they are capable of doing - the previous blog about Sonu and Manisha just goes to show just one example of this - and the reality is that there are 1000s like this.

The fact of the matter is that 85 quid a month could do so so much for these children - it really is not that much is it?

It is clear that improvements are needed desperately especially for the slum children, but attitudes and corruption are deeply ingrained in society and are extremely difficult to change. This is one of the main barriers that India's population faces and is a difficult one to break down.