Transform Lives Of 12,000 Underprivileged Kids

Rahul (name changed on parents' request) lives in the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai and his father works as a laborer in a printing press. Zoya lives in the slums near Jogeshwari and her father got expired recently. Her mother is not earning enough to support her family with two more kids. Laxmi (name changed on parents' request) lives near Thane Station and his father has a tea stall near railway station.

The future of all three of them was on stake and soon their family's financial and social background could have lead them to join the vicious circle of poverty, illiteracy and even child labor. When volunteers of Tapasya Pratishthan identified them as eligible for school admissions under section 12.1.c of RTE Act, it turned out to be a magical moment in their life.

This is despite the fact that Education is the fundamental right of all children by birth. Section 12.1.c of the RIght to Education (RTE) Act reserves 25 % seats in private unaided schools for children from socio-economically disadvantaged background. In the State of Maharashtra alone there are nearly 1.26L such seats out of which 40% remain vacant every year. Sounds unnerving? It is, indeed, but just like Rome was not built in a day, even this crisis did not surface overnight. This is the effect of the compounding of vicious cycles of policy implementation and technological challenges, the receiving end of which are small souls who if given an equal opportunity at education have the potential to be no less than Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

Today Rahul, Zoya and Laxmi are studying in good private schools of their choice near their home and all of them are very happy studying there.  Today dreams of their parents to send their kids in a good school got fulfilled due to RTE Act.

RTE 12.1. c is one such opportunity through which children can get better education and have a great future. Section 12.1. c of the Right to Education Act, mandates for 25% reservation in unaided private schools for children belonging to economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.

This year, Tapasya Pratishthan is running a campaign to help 12,000 kids enroll into schools of their choice, under RTE Sec 12.1.c In Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Jalgaon there are 45,000+ seats available in private schools for children from low income communities, which is a great opportunity for the under served masses. There is very low awareness among the poor families about this provision. So, we have started an educational information campaign to create awareness in 100+ Slums in focused areas. We support the candidates at every stage  - identification, checking eligibility, documentation, application and admission.  

We require financial support for the following in order to achieve the mission of enrolling 12K children in schools:
- Printing 2,00,000 Pamphlets and distributing them
- Setting up helpline center with 12 tele-callers
- 25 Application Desks to collect and process the applications