Ghaziabad’s only hope

The community undertaken by Lakshyam includes families inhabiting an area of land near Arthala, Mohan nagar at Ghaziabad. All members of the community earn their living by rag-picking. The ragpickers daily rummage through discarded (waste) material from the nearby developed localities, dump it right outside their respective makeshift homes and begin the tedious task of sorting and allotting the material according to need, usage and sale value. The makeshift homes of this community are composed of little more than what can be found among the waste material. Most of the children began rag picking along with their parents to supplement the household income at an early age.
Lakshyam entered the arthala community with a small patch which is now known as the Ghaziabad center for education and skill development. In the beginning, it was a challenge to convince the parents to send their children to school. With gradual surveys and door to door discussions, we finally garnered 52 children in two months from 150 households who are regularly attending classes every week in the morning and afternoon batch.
Their curriculum is designed according to their need and follows a holistic approach in learning. Apart from stationary that is distributed amongst kids, we encourage them to take weekly extra curricular activities such as drawing, colouring, learning to speak about themselves, playing sports activities, singing and group dancing. We can proudly say that we have been successful in enrolling 9 of our children into private schools in an effort to mainstream them into regular schools. Their fees as well as other resources are being sponsored by Lakshyam’s donors. Lakshyam is the only hope as in the area there is no other NGO who is helping the community people for the welfare and development.