Plan India

On our last day in Mumbai, we visited Plan India, an Indian non-profit dedicated to improving the welfare of Indian children.

After visiting so many big companies – software firms, banks, insurance companies, etc., this visit was a marked contrast to what we had seen previously. Instead of taking an elevator and being shown into an air-conditioned, well-appointed boardroom, we found ourselves walking up several flights of stairs into a small, cramped, and very hot school classroom. Instead of reiterating all the wonderful growth opportunities in India that we had heard about from all the companies, this presentation focused instead on some of hard realities of Indian society that pertain to children: 20% of children not in school (a staggering 80 million children), children account for an estimated 20% of India’s GDP through child labor in “unorganized” work, only 2% of children with disabilities receive any sort of service, stigmatization of children with AIDS, disadvantage of girls, huge population of street children… and the list goes on.

After the presentation, we saw a film created by children as a part of one of Plan’s programs that addressed the issue of child labor in India. In the film, we saw children interviewing and documenting other children weaving rugs to support their family, tending goats as part of bonded labor, and “rag picking” through a garbage dump. The film was quite moving because it made these issues real and personal, rather than just statistics.

The second part of our Plan India visit was a trip to one of the slums of Mumbai (New Tank Road) where we were to see one of their programs – Doorstep Schools – in action. Going into the slums of Mumbai was unlike anything we had seen thus far in India – tiny, self-made dwellings, sometimes stacked two or three high with a ladder going to the upper homes, where a family of ten might live, were all crowded together into a big maze with no proper sanitation system or clean water.

We first visited their doorstep school bus, which they bring into different slum areas in an effort to bring some basic education to children who are not attending formal schools. We then wound our way through the narrow alleys of the slum to visit a preschool being run there. In a tiny, low-ceilinged second story “room” we observed a class of about 30 adorable preschoolers (I think we were a bit of a distraction to the class!).

All in all, it was a very interesting - and eye-opening - visit.

-Julie Green-Heffern