Chapter Notes
Two Hundred Folders, Two Hundred Futures
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much..”
- Helen Keller
There is a moment worth capturing every time a kit is handed to a child for the first time, before opening and discovering what it has in store. Perhaps it’s when they decide to keep it for themselves. That pause occurred two hundred times at the IP Centre on the 1st of August, the Saturday that marked a relatively quiet Pehchaan The Street School milestone this year.
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Collaborating with DHA 1 saw Pehchaan The Street School provide two-hundred educational kits to students at the centre, one hundred of which were tailored to children up to the Class 5 and another hundred for higher classes. The kits contained the basics one would expect to see in a classroom, notebooks, pencils, pens, and a folder to keep the lot together. These were things most of the children had in abundance, only not with their own personal stationery, brand new and ready to use.
A point should be made about tailoring these kits to different age groups. Giving each child one uniform kit would mean catering to either extreme, which wouldn’t be helpful for either group. Dividing the kits saw each child off with resources fitting to their level, which is ultimately what Pehchaan The Street School aims to accomplish with everything it does. It is corporate collaboration like this that sees Pehchaan provide individualised education, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that most educational systems employ.
That is the sort of collaboration that goes beyond a token CSR donation and into the realm of making a real difference in somebody’s life. The two-hundred kits from DHA 1 were a contribution, yes, but they also saw two-hundred children return home with something they could use everyday. That is the sort of difference that is hard to quantify, but no less important.
Volunteers spent the day passing out kits and ensuring each child received what was due to them, responding to questions and generally enjoying themselves. Projects like this don’t always have an image as glamorous as a large-scale corporate launch, but they have impact nonetheless, and volunteers are a large part of that. Helping two-hundred children is a different sort of satisfaction to two-hundred-thousand, and no less rewarding.
An unspoken result of donations like these is the trust and goodwill they generate among the communities surrounding Pehchaan The Street School centres. That is, if word of them gets out. Parents and guardians who see their children being helped are more likely to come forward in subsequent visits, and that kind of engagement is crucial for community-building and long-term relationships. A single family being able to send their child off to a Pehchaan centre on a Saturday morning is a good start, but every session after is a chance to build on that engagement.
Two hundred kits is a number that speaks to a beginning, rather than an end — to the long and winding road ahead of providing quality education to all. It might not seem like much, but two hundred children getting proper access to education and not having to share a single pencil between them is a step forward. After all, every journey begins with a single kit.
If you’d like to be a part of something bigger, there are always opportunities to get involved. Sign up to volunteer at a centre near you, or help out with distribution days by donating your time. And if you’re interested in making a larger contribution, you can always partner with Pehchaan The Street School as a provider and help with the next kit distribution.
