It All Begins By Asking Why

You wouldn’t expect a French speaking daughter of a diplomat to care much about a group of Rajasthani nomads who live on footpath or be teaching a batch of slum children spoken English in a shack in the Girinagar slum of Delhi, but that is exactly what Anouradha Bakshi does.

Propelled by a sense of needing to give back to society, Anouradha started out by making a difference to a handful of slum dwelling kids by giving them an education. She designed a curriculum that could be achieved by the children, gathered a few volunteers and began classes on pavements, in empty parks and in reclaimed garbage dumps. In time she gave over 800 slum children of Govindpuri an education and dignity.

In 2000 the idea behind Project WHY is to empower a community to pool its resources and run a sound support program for its children. Today, they have achieved that and so much more. Project WHY reaches out to over 1000 children and runs one early education programs, four primary and three secondary after school support programs, a day care and life skills programs for 20 children with disabilities and three computer centers as well.

Project WHY has no institutional or government support and hence depends entirely on individuals and donations from well wishers and supporters. Every teacher or aid worker in their network is a volunteer and at the helm of all of this is Anouradha, who works tirelessly everyday to bring together people to support the project and enlist volunteers to help run it. Her sense of responsibility and need to give back to society should be a lesson to every one of us. We might not be able to directly influence or change a life of another person in this country, but what we can do is lend out vote and the power behind it to the candidates and parties who will plan policy to help Anouradha do the work she does.

Women must take to the polling booths in the upcoming general election and leverage the #PowerOf49.

http://projectwhy.org