Prayas Foundation visits Titwala Gurukul - A Residential School (Ashram) for Underprivileged Street
One of our very active Volunteers, Miss Archana Kadam informed us about this residential school located at Titwala.
Prayas Foundation had already conducted a donation campaign during the Ganpati Festival in a unique way. Some of our members starting from our Founder / President, Mr. Rohit Kokardekar & our Secretary Mrs. Anushka Kokardekar invited people to their home for Ganpati Darshan & requested them to bring Notebook & pen instead of Flowers, Prasad or sweets. The thought was liked by many friends & a group named "VIJAY PARK FRIENDS CIRCLE" from Vijay Park complex at Kasarvadavali, Ghodbunder road, Thane West publicized this thought at their Sarvajanik Ganpati Mandal.
Mr. Swapnil Chitre & Mr. Sameer Bhatkar volunteers of Prayas Foundation residing in Vijay Park took over the responsibility of Collections there.
Other than about 15 dozens of notebooks & Pens, a few other school stationary items were also donated by people & we were then ready for our 1st Campaign.
On 2nd September 2017, Few members of Prayas Foundation led by Mr. Swapnil Chitre left for Titwala early morning with all the collected Stationary Items. After travelling for almost 2 hours, we finally reached the Ashram at around 10.30 AM.
Although all the children one by one wished us with "NAMASTE", none of the kids came close to us for almost an hour.The caretakers informed us that these children come from the streets or the Railway platforms. They are exploited by someone or the other & hence are scared of people sweet talking to them. We told them very clearly that we will wait for the children to get comfortable with us but we will not be Rough with them. We were willing to even wait the whole day if required.
So, while we waited, the caretakers started telling stories of what each child has gone through & how they reached the Ashram. Some stories gave us goosebumps while some brought tears in our eyes. Some Stories were so horrifying that we started thinking about where our human race is heading to. There were total 40 Children there but we are only sharing a couple of stories here.
Story 1.
A boy aged around 9 years was brought from his village here by some platform beggars. First they addicted him to stuff like drinking Whitener (Yes you read correct. The very whitener we use to erase our typing mistakes), Eating Zandu Balm & Iodex in a bread. Just hearing that sounded so inhuman.
Why do they do this?
Once the child is addicted, they use him/her to sell drugs on the platforms. And for doing that the entire day & night the child is just paid a meager Rs. 50/- for it. The child keeps doing it as he is addicted & wants his daily dose. Cruel & Criminal, isn't it? But its true. It took the caretakers a year to get him off the addiction.
To prevent him from running away they used to take turns in monitoring him day & night because he used to get so desperate sometimes that he used to try & run away.
When we met him our eyes swelled up with tears as he was so active, innocent & fun loving boy.
Now this year they have admitted him to a school & he enjoys his studies too.
Story 2
There was a small girl of around 3 years of age. When we asked about her, this was what we heard.
A daughter of a drunkard & drug addict beggar who used to beg outside a theatre at Kalyan, this little angel was abandoned by her mother when she was just 6 months old.
One of the Caretakers noticed her begging on the streets one day & stood observing her for 5-6 hours. He saw that whateever the little one used to accumulate in a couple of hours, she used to go to her father & he used to smack her & send her to get snacks from a shop for him to eat with his drinks. The caretakers then started visiting the spot everyday from the next day & spend the full day sitting next to the beggar trying to explain & convince him how sending his daughter with them to the Ashram will help his daughter get a normal life & how she will be able to avoid the rotten life.
Finally after relentless pursuing with him everyday for almost a month, the man agreed.
When the little girl was brought to the Ashram, within the next couple of days her mother came to the place with another man & started arguing with the caretakers to either handover her daughter back to her or give her money for her daughter.
Although this angered us a lot on hearing it now, the caretakers handled her extremely well then. They straight away said No to both her offers & told her that she is welcome to the ashram , whenever she wants to meet her daughter but she cannot take her out & if she still insisted on creating problems then she can visit their advocate.
Although we applauded their efforts, we also wondered how they must be managing all these kids. We, the members of Prayas Foundation took a pledge there & then that although we would try for all but we will definitely provide for education & further support for atleast 2 of these kids. With this thought in mind we finally left the place at 2 PM.
If we are lucky enough to get support from kind hearted people like you, we can provide for more kids. So if you are interested & would like to know more then feel free to Email us on prayasft@gmail.com or WhatsApp us on 9769976565
