Sri Sri Vidya Mandir – Dharavi School (www.dharavischool.org) was founded in 2007 with humble beginning. The school is built on land cleared off garbage and drug adda by Art of Living volunteers. Initially foundation stone for a 2 room school was launched and since then, it has grown to 12 rooms giving joy and education to 340 kids.
Photo 1 –Curious Kids ready for school assembly
Dharavi is melting pot of migrant laborers where education for children in not the first priority. Most of children are first generation students who otherwise may not have a chance to hold a book. The school provides free education to more than 50% of students and subsidized education to rest. Every day starts with meditation both for teachers and all the kids. Surayanamaskars, Pranayams, mantra chanting and meditation create an environment that is ripe for learning.
Lunch is nutritious meal provided by the school so that kids get necessary proteins for grey cells. One thing you find in abundance in Dharavi School is laughter.
School also serves as spring board for number of community programs. Dharavi School runs a program with Westin Hotel in Goregaon to train unemployed Dharavi youth in job oriented hotel management course. Post completion, students get job in various hotels and support their families while developing them into a true hotel professional.
What Dharavi has is big pool of semi-skilled and unskilled manpower. Drivers, plumbers, electricians – you name it and chances are that many of people in this field live in Dharavi. Most of the young people are ambitious and only need direction and chance to prove themselves.
What we need are ideas on how can we mine this hidden talent to deliver on dreams of people. So our request to readers is
- If you would like to contribute in any manner to Dharavi School
- If you have an idea that can leverage strengths of Dharavi,
Myself and Navin are Art of Living teachers who run Westin program at Dharavi School. Please write to Me at akshay.dedhia@yahoo.co.in or Navin at navingupta2@gmail.com.