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Hello everyone, my name is Rupesh chaurasia. I live and study in Mumbai and was born in my home state Uttar Pradesh and I am 15 years old.
I am from a community where people sustaining a livelihood by earning meals is given more priority over education. My family consists of 5 members with me and my two hard-working parents where my dad has a small sugarcane juice shop and my mother works for more than 18 hours a day either working for earning money or for completing all the household chores. I have an elder brother and sister who are currently studying. My mom and dad have to manage the expenses of the house by working day and night despite the health issues both of them face. The pandemic created immense resistance for me and my family in order to balance out the financial conditions of my family. In the initial stages of the pandemic, we gained help from various people in the community which aided our meals for a few months but a time arrived when we had no money left to have meals, and then we had to migrate back to the village.
I did my education at a small school in Pratiksha Nagar, soon. We were lucky that there we got fellows from Teach for India (A non-governmental organisation that aims at providing an excellent education to the students in low-income schools) in our 3rd grade who emphasised our holistic development by giving us exposure to the extracurricular opportunities and I tried to grab as many of them I could to foster my overall development. Due to the pandemic, my board exams got cancelled.
We had to migrate back to the village during the pandemic. My father faced child marriage and got married at the age of 15 years and the entire load of the family came on the shoulders of my father and he had to leave his education and migrate to Mumbai City for earning some money. He has six sisters and as my dad was the eldest he had to wrap up his education and started earning money for his sister's marriage. My father understands the importance of education as he wasn’t able to continue his, hence both of my parents try to work hard as much as they can in order to fulfill the needs of the family and handle the expenses of our education. This lockdown created a huge challenge and at times we had to make tough decisions regarding meals and the resources required for education as we didn't have the money for recharging my device.
Around two to three years prior my father had a very huge swelling in the stomach. He couldn’t even sit properly and when after two to three months he had no finances left to handle my father decided to still go to work and my mother worked day and night to pay our school fees and the amount of hard work they have put for my education have shaped the way I am today. The life of mother and father have shaped the way I am today. My mom had a severe accident when I was 1 year old and three of her brain nerves got totally damaged. Even after all of this, she invests enough hard work every day which always keeps me inspired that if she can work that hard then why can't I. If there is one piece of bread they will give it to me and my sister and both of them will sleep hungry. During the lockdown, we had to migrate back to our village as all our finances were lost in the two months of lockdown. My father, even with all his ailments, decided to drive through the road for a distance of 1700km for 24 hours in a taxi. Even after we came to the village we had a lot of network issues in our areas and every single day he made sure that I am able to attend the classes and stayed with me. All of their kindness, hard work and care for the family inspires me always. The pandemic has made me realise the power of unconditional love and fighting all odds. I want to pay off all the hardships that they have made for me and give them a better life ahead.
I firmly believe that everything goes in a cycle. I have been raised in a TFI classroom being privileged with a reimagined education and with the power to question the things around me by critically analysing them. We gained a holistic education focusing not only on academics but on non-academics too by providing us with various extracurricular opportunities for our overall development as an individual. I aspire to pass on this privilege to someone else and the chain and be continued further and this would help us to gain a society where every child gets an excellent education. I believe that since we have been raised in this society so as an individual of this society we have the responsibility to do something for this society by creating an impact of our existence in this society by removing the inhumane ideologies and mould the society in a way that everyone gains equality, justice, equity and most importantly freedom to do and be whatever they want.
Considering this belief I have started some of my own initiatives that are currently running simultaneously and I am even working with some organizations to create an impact of my existence. Holistic Approaches is one of my initiatives that I started with one of my peers which focuses on creating safe spaces for people to voice their opinions on our platform on various topics. We look through the world with a different lens by trying to critically analyse things around us and helping others to unleash their knowledge.
My second initiative is The Equality Project which was targeted by me during the pandemic when I could see that various sections of the society faced a lot of inequalities and the pandemic made them even more vulnerable to society. This project aims at bridging the gap amongst both genders with the essence of understanding and respect. We work towards holding sessions and trying to create an impact through sessions and slowly bringing those thoughts on the ground.
I am working with various organizations like Ayukta (A non-profit organisation that works towards providing an excellent education to underprivileged children) where I was a mentor and used to teach a kid every alternate day. I have worked with City as Labs for 3 years where I did research in my community on various problems and tried to find a solution to them but deeply understanding regarding my community. I got selected for the national conference of CAL and got the opportunity to be amongst 6 teams selected from the country twice. In my third year, a short film was made in which I was also included with other of my team members.
I even had the opportunity to be a part of the inspirED conference and I was the team leader of my team. For the conference, we had to critically analyze the book The Animal Farm by George Orwell and we had to explain its relevance in the 21st century.
I dream of becoming an inspiration to many as belonging to a low-income family we are not allowed to dream so big. I want to give back as much as I can to the community. The conditions in my family have been preventing me from fulfilling all my requirements of resources that I need to gain an excellent education. I firmly believe that all my dreams are in reach only if I believe and have hope as the walls of inequalities are so high that we have to think about our ambitions and goals only in our minds.
I needed a lot of help in terms of finances as my family is facing a lot of issues regarding the expenses of our family hence i am currently raising funds various finances as follows:
I did my education at a small school in Pratiksha Nagar, soon. We were lucky that there we got fellows from Teach for India (A non-governmental organisation that aims at providing an excellent education to the students in low-income schools) in our 3rd grade who emphasised our holistic development by giving us exposure to the extracurricular opportunities and I tried to grab as many of them I could to foster my overall development. Due to the pandemic, my board exams got cancelled.
We had to migrate back to the village during the pandemic. My father faced child marriage and got married at the age of 15 years and the entire load of the family came on the shoulders of my father and he had to leave his education and migrate to Mumbai City for earning some money. He has six sisters and as my dad was the eldest he had to wrap up his education and started earning money for his sister's marriage. My father understands the importance of education as he wasn’t able to continue his, hence both of my parents try to work hard as much as they can in order to fulfill the needs of the family and handle the expenses of our education. This lockdown created a huge challenge and at times we had to make tough decisions regarding meals and the resources required for education as we didn't have the money for recharging my device.
Around two to three years prior my father had a very huge swelling in the stomach. He couldn’t even sit properly and when after two to three months he had no finances left to handle my father decided to still go to work and my mother worked day and night to pay our school fees and the amount of hard work they have put for my education have shaped the way I am today. The life of mother and father have shaped the way I am today. My mom had a severe accident when I was 1 year old and three of her brain nerves got totally damaged. Even after all of this, she invests enough hard work every day which always keeps me inspired that if she can work that hard then why can't I. If there is one piece of bread they will give it to me and my sister and both of them will sleep hungry. During the lockdown, we had to migrate back to our village as all our finances were lost in the two months of lockdown. My father, even with all his ailments, decided to drive through the road for a distance of 1700km for 24 hours in a taxi. Even after we came to the village we had a lot of network issues in our areas and every single day he made sure that I am able to attend the classes and stayed with me. All of their kindness, hard work and care for the family inspires me always. The pandemic has made me realise the power of unconditional love and fighting all odds. I want to pay off all the hardships that they have made for me and give them a better life ahead.
I firmly believe that everything goes in a cycle. I have been raised in a TFI classroom being privileged with a reimagined education and with the power to question the things around me by critically analysing them. We gained a holistic education focusing not only on academics but on non-academics too by providing us with various extracurricular opportunities for our overall development as an individual. I aspire to pass on this privilege to someone else and the chain and be continued further and this would help us to gain a society where every child gets an excellent education. I believe that since we have been raised in this society so as an individual of this society we have the responsibility to do something for this society by creating an impact of our existence in this society by removing the inhumane ideologies and mould the society in a way that everyone gains equality, justice, equity and most importantly freedom to do and be whatever they want.
Considering this belief I have started some of my own initiatives that are currently running simultaneously and I am even working with some organizations to create an impact of my existence. Holistic Approaches is one of my initiatives that I started with one of my peers which focuses on creating safe spaces for people to voice their opinions on our platform on various topics. We look through the world with a different lens by trying to critically analyse things around us and helping others to unleash their knowledge.
My second initiative is The Equality Project which was targeted by me during the pandemic when I could see that various sections of the society faced a lot of inequalities and the pandemic made them even more vulnerable to society. This project aims at bridging the gap amongst both genders with the essence of understanding and respect. We work towards holding sessions and trying to create an impact through sessions and slowly bringing those thoughts on the ground.
I am working with various organizations like Ayukta (A non-profit organisation that works towards providing an excellent education to underprivileged children) where I was a mentor and used to teach a kid every alternate day. I have worked with City as Labs for 3 years where I did research in my community on various problems and tried to find a solution to them but deeply understanding regarding my community. I got selected for the national conference of CAL and got the opportunity to be amongst 6 teams selected from the country twice. In my third year, a short film was made in which I was also included with other of my team members.
I even had the opportunity to be a part of the inspirED conference and I was the team leader of my team. For the conference, we had to critically analyze the book The Animal Farm by George Orwell and we had to explain its relevance in the 21st century.
I dream of becoming an inspiration to many as belonging to a low-income family we are not allowed to dream so big. I want to give back as much as I can to the community. The conditions in my family have been preventing me from fulfilling all my requirements of resources that I need to gain an excellent education. I firmly believe that all my dreams are in reach only if I believe and have hope as the walls of inequalities are so high that we have to think about our ambitions and goals only in our minds.
I needed a lot of help in terms of finances as my family is facing a lot of issues regarding the expenses of our family hence i am currently raising funds various finances as follows:
1. Outstanding school fees- Rs 14,000/-
2. Tuition fee for higher education- Rs 6.000/-
3. Laptop charges (to pursue my online education)- Rs 30,000/-
4. Internet charges (for my online education)- Rs 2,000/-
5. Routine household expense- Rs 8,000/-
If you are donating for this, I assure you that you are starting a chain of empathy and helping me break the cycle of poverty which can lead me towards making an equitable world for all of humanity. If you are sharing this you are contributing to a bigger movement for the marginalised ones.
Here is the link to the official website: Holistic Approaches
Here is the link to an Instagram that was posted by CAL when we got selected:
Here is the link to the short film that was made by CAL.
If you are contributing you are helping me become a ray of light for the people in my community to conquer their dreams and have the power to help others behind me which can help in making both the ends of the society meet. I just want you to imagine what your contribution means to me and my family and the people around me. Your contribution can help me continue my education in this unprecedented time. Help me to break this chain of poverty.
Thank you!
2. Tuition fee for higher education- Rs 6.000/-
3. Laptop charges (to pursue my online education)- Rs 30,000/-
4. Internet charges (for my online education)- Rs 2,000/-
5. Routine household expense- Rs 8,000/-
If you are donating for this, I assure you that you are starting a chain of empathy and helping me break the cycle of poverty which can lead me towards making an equitable world for all of humanity. If you are sharing this you are contributing to a bigger movement for the marginalised ones.
Here is the link to the official website: Holistic Approaches
Here is the link to an Instagram that was posted by CAL when we got selected:
Here is the link to the short film that was made by CAL.
If you are contributing you are helping me become a ray of light for the people in my community to conquer their dreams and have the power to help others behind me which can help in making both the ends of the society meet. I just want you to imagine what your contribution means to me and my family and the people around me. Your contribution can help me continue my education in this unprecedented time. Help me to break this chain of poverty.
Thank you!
