Ludhiana advocate runs school for ragpickers in one-room slum hutment

A 50-year-old advocate from Ludhiana is making sure that being born in an underprivileged family does not prevent children from acquiring an education. Hari Om Jindal has started a school in a slum in the city for children who used to be ragpickers and beggars.

The school, which is housed in a simple hut-like structure, consists of just a single room where classes are held on the basis of shifts. His strategy of enrolling students in school is simple. Jindal talks to children who are employed in menial jobs and tries to build a rapport with them by distributing sweets and toys among them regularly. The numbers of students at the school has now increased from 12 to 30 and are between the age groups of 4 to 14 years.

The children learn not just about alphabets and numbers but also things that will be of practical use to them in their daily lives like the workings of democracy, public property, taxation, governance, voting, the Constitution, their fundamental rights and duties, how we select our representatives and much more. The school’s popularity has even led eight women from the slums to enrol over there as students. They get to learn about subjects like English and maths in the afternoon classes, according to reports.