July 2006

New Ventures Beckon

There was a meeting held at the office of Ms. Rina Ray, Secretary (Education), Government of NCT of Delhi on the 20th of July 2006.

Ms. Ray said that there were two unused school buildings which could be converted into fully residential hostels for boys and girls separately. She wanted orphans, rescued children and children working as labourers to be the occupants of these hostels. The idea was to provide these children with a home from where they could attend the neighbouring schools run by the government.

One of the buildings was at Pul Bangash in Chandni Chowk. It is an old building of British style architecture and it can accommodate about 150 girls who would be provided with free accommodation and food. It would be close to their schools and convenient for them to walk to school.

The other building is a new school building situated in Dwarka. It can accommodate many more students compared to the Pul Bangash residential school.

Both these residential facilities would be home for the children till they passed out of class 12. The funds for this project would be provided by SSA and the Government. The Ministry of Human Resource Development will also support this venture.

Ms. Rina Ray urged Ritinjali to take over the implementation of this project. Arun Kapur insisted that there should be clear guidelines regarding admission policies and the day to day running of the schools. Once these have been outlined clearly there should not be any kind of interference by the government in the regular functioning of the schools.

Ms. Ray responded that there would be meetings with the various departments of the government to frame clear guidelines for the running of the schools.

Arun Kapur also suggested that the Police Department and the Child Welfare Department should be a part of the managing committee as it would help to sort out any legal problems that might crop up.

Ms. Ray then sounded Ritinjali on a second program – The setting up of a Vocational Skills Training Centre which would function as a semi residential institute. The trainees would leave after the days training to stay at a shelter that would be provided by the government.

Arun Kapur then spoke about Ritinjali's Second Chance School which is a semi residential vocational skills training centre. He offered to provide training for about 20 children along with free accommodation, food and clothing for a period of a year and a half at the Second Chance School . He said that if there were any children who would benefit from our program, they should be sent to Ritinjali and we would be more than happy to train them.

Kalikuppam

House Construction

Ritinjali has decided to adopt SEVAI's plans for house construction and are negotiating with them to construct houses that are structurally sound. It was also decided that the construction of the houses should precede the construction of the school building. CBRE, an organization was interested in donating about 45 lakhs for the school project in Kalikuppam. Mr. Gurpreet Singh will follow up on this offer from CBRE.

The representatives of SEVAI along with their financiers visited Kalikuppam and took suggestions from the local people before they got the house construction project off the ground.