Deepalaya - Enabling Self-Reliance

Brief Profile

Deepalaya School Gusbethi at Deepalaya Gram was initiated in 1998 with the aim of providing institutional care to the vulnerable from the streets of Delhi and to provide quality education to the children from the nearby villages. There had been a relentless demand for a good Formal English school in the area since; the quality of English medium education is very poor, even, if there are Government schools. Further, the villagers cannot manage to pay the exorbitant fees of private schools for their offspring because of their poor financial condition. The school started it operations from 1999.

The School was built with the support provided by Foundation of Christian Education, Netherlands and Maulana Azad Education Foundation, India. The school is a two-storied building with 13 classrooms, which are spacious enough to seat 40 students in each class. It has proper ventilation with tube lights and ceiling fans. To the Heart Foundation provides monetary support for the proper functioning of the school. The school has a bus that goes to 14 villages to pick and drop the students from these villages. As a result, more and more parents are being motivated to send their wards to school particularly the girl child.

The school is presently running classes from LKG (Lower Kinder garden) to class VIIth. It also coaches students to appear for class IIIrd, Vth, VIIIth and Xth level examinations conducted by Open Basic and National Institute of Open Schooling. There are seven permanent teachers and one guest teacher for the school. The school had only seven students when it started but now the strength has increased to 396 (197 boys and 199 girls). The following table and figure shows the number of students enrolled for the past five years.

A small number of the students (49) are from the Deepalaya hostel for street and working children from Delhi. The school plays an important role in the life of these street children as the approach to rehabilitate them is to isolate them from the present situation in which they are, and offer them an opportunity to live like children who are provided with love, care, amenities so as to restore their lost childhood.
The school has a well-planned curriculum based on the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus. English, Hindi, Urdu, EVR, Mathematics, Science, Computer and Drawing are taught in the school. A teacher especially for Urdu has been appointed to meet the demand of the Muslim population.

A major problem that the school faces is low attendance rate of the students coming from the villages. Most of the parents are illiterate and economically very poor. They are by and large farmers and stone crushers. So they prefer their children helping them with work instead of going to school. During the harvesting season this affects the attendance of the students. Also girls are married off very early, almost from the age of 10. To solve this problem the teachers are going to the villages of the students, interacting with the parents and trying to motivate them to send their children to the school. Sarpanchs or the village-chiefs and village elders of the villages play a significant role in generating mass awareness. They contribute immeasurably towards fulfilling Deepalaya goals and objectives especially in education/ enrollment in school.
Bearing in mind the need to generate and enhance the capabilities of girl children from economically impoverished background, different organizations/ foundations have come forward to support the girl students of Deepalaya School Gusbethi through education. Foundations like To The Heart Foundation, Mahindra Foundation, Latter Day Saints Charity and Tele Atlas was/ are supporting in our endeavor to educate the girl child.

The children are initiated to various extra-curricular activities such as quiz, declamation, singing, dancing, sports and physical education etc. besides education so that would help in empowering the children with knowledge as well as make them grow into a self reliant person. The students are also taken for periodic excursion trips for example the recent trip to Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh to stimulate and widen their perceptions of the realities of life and the environment we live in. Our role as guide is to observe and nurture them to the best of our ability.
As school days play an important role in an individual’s life and shape its future appearance, Deepalaya caters to the holistic development of a child from academics to sports and extra curricular activities. During the summer break students are encouraged to join hobby classes to explore and discover their latent skills. Subsequently, the school regularly organizes inter-house competitions of drawing, quiz, sports and many more. Children are constantly encouraged to participate with other organizations like Nehru Bal Samiti, Lakotia group, WWF, UNICEF in competitions such as essay writing, dancing, painting etc.
Furthermore the students got the opportunity to get in touch with international companies. Children of the School were taken to the American Express Bank located at Gurgaon on an invitation made by the Bank. The main objective of the exposure trip was to interact with the children and make them expose to Multi National Corporations. A total of 50 children and four teachers visited the Bank and interacted with the staff of the Bank

Besides that the School offers a lot of occasions and special activities for the children. Every year on the 26th day of January, the Republic Day, the Children are making speeches on the importance of the day, on the rights of citizens and how to protect these rights. They are speaking about India’s struggle for Freedom and Painting and drawing competitions are held too.
Other Special days are the World Disability Day and the Annual Day, where the Children are preparing events or theater plays, to integrate and recognize the disadvantage persons of our society. On these days Deepalaya savor extraordinary achievements of the students with special prices and awards.
Deepalaya is very interested in creating an environment, which fits the best for the children’s education. The School got hygiene certificate from medical officer, which is mandatory for getting Haryana Govt. affiliation. The children are examined by the Doctor, every alternate Wednesday and Thursday, to know about their health status.
Apart from curative services, health education is also imparted to the students. The Health coordinator of Chameli Dewan Rural Health Clinic takes health education classes on every Friday. Personal hygiene, sanitation, nutrition are some of the topics which are discussed through interactive ways with the students.
Deepalaya is also interested in the physical health of the children. With periodical sports events the school tries to create an awareness of physical activities. In the last week of December, the sports week is celebrated with competitions in Kho-Kho, Cricket, Football, Badminton and Track & Fields.

Vision of the Project

For the success of the School it is important to have a high acceptance within the population. Only with the support of the parents and the families, the school will reach a high attendance rate and more children will get an opportunity for the education. Deepalaya is furthermore very interested in spreading high motivation in the villages, so that more families support the way, Deepalaya is going.

Future Plans

Deepalaya is working hard on the issue to guarantee the education for all children up to class Xth. In addition, it is very important for Deepalaya to provide computer and language skills to the children. Through intensive computer courses, Deepalaya tries to reach a computer literacy of 100% among the children and also the skill of spoken English.

How can you help?

Deepalaya is committed to make a difference in a child’s life by ensuring his/ her physical and psychological health and this can be done through education and support of families on a range of issues that could change their life for better. You can help us in our endeavour by

• Being a volunteer in our school.
• Sponsoring a child’s education.
• Sponsoring a class of our school in their education.
• Being a partner of our Project Sponsorship. Project Sponsorship is a program through which a sponsor/ donor gets an opportunity to assist a particular Deepalaya project/ school for its various activities. It is an integrated community development program with child being the entry point.