Treasure from trash

Making true the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, Hyderabadi Nauman Ahmed Sharif runs the NGO Aikarthya. Nauman and his team teaches communicative English “in par with the American standards” to around 240 students in three low-income schools in the city. And as part of the Trash4cause campaign, he raises funds through trash. Close to 50 per cent of the amount raised is by selling newspapers. “I have seen my mom sell newspapers for years. I thought, instead of asking people to donate money, it’s easier to ask them to donate newspapers,” says Nauman adding, “Even if 500 students donate 15 newspapers each, we can raise more than '5,000 from it.”

Talking about how the interest started, Nauman says, “I was raised in Jeddah and shifted to India while I was in Class VIII. When I came to India during vacations, I always thought why do I have a car and an AC back home when the guy on the road doesn’t even have proper clothes to wear? Even during the Gujarat earthquake, I had raised 10,000 Riyadh (approx Rs 1,80,991).”

Nauman wanted to be a commercial pilot, but the school later shut down. Nauman had to fight for 100 people who stayed back and took up a course in another university which gave him confidence that if he wanted, he could bring about a change. He was just 18 then.

Nauman needs at least Rs 90,000 per month to run the organisation that made its own curriculum. To cut down on the cost, they photocopy the books instead of getting it published. He also has three felicitators who work full time.

One of the classes in progress that is undertaken by the volunteers.

“We don’t want to raise the entire money through trash. We also have people who could donate. We raise close to Rs 45,000 from trash,” he said.

“Our major idea is to gauge a child in a way that when I give them a textbook, the student should be able to read, comprehend and answer the questions we ask. We teach students from Class VI, VII and VIII through stories. There were sixth graders who didn’t know the meaning of words like how, why and when. They had a very poor vocabulary. We want to build a habit to push their mind to think,” he says.  

By next academic year, Nauman and his team has many plans, one of them is to start the programme in 10 classrooms.