Mumbai ragpicker shows the way

“A Aa Ee E Oo…,” a motley group of children chants the Marathi alphabet, unmindful of the stench and stray hens wandering about a makeshift shed that is their “school”. Neha Bhayana reports.

“A Aa Ee E Oo…,” a motley group of children chants the Marathi alphabet, unmindful of the stench and stray hens wandering about a makeshift shed that is their “school”.

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From 11.30 am to 3.30 pm every day, their teacher instructs them using a chipped blackboard and reads poems to them from donated textbooks.

The students, aged 3 to 6, are rag-pickers’ children; the school stands in the Mulund dumping ground, which receives 300 metric tonnes of waste daily; the teacher is Kavita Sopane, a Class 10 drop out who used to be a rag-picker.

Sopane (21) started this informal playgroup in the 75-family Durgawadi slum in the dumping ground to encourage children to get a formal education by laying a foundation.

There is no government-run anganwadi (childcare and pre-school centre) in the area because under the central government scheme these centres are set up in areas with a population of more than 1,000 people. The nearest civic school, which enrols children only over six years of age, is a 45-minute walk.