Education
goGopalgo : Gopal
Meet Gopal, my younger brother, my friend, my student as well as my teacher and the son of Bhadur & Bena (they have been may parents support staff for more years then I have been alive) and themselves are domestic, migrant workers. Gopal along with his parents is my personal inspiration and the reason for goGopalgo. Gopal’s parents working in Mumbai, their son in the village with very limited access to education. How many Gopals (boys and girls) in villages and urban village ghettos in India with no or very poor education. As all Gopals get older they migrate to urban India and continue their journey in their life being part of the informal economy that drives the GDP growth for India but they themselves stay out.
This needs to change and the current Government has embarked on several pathbreaking initiatives since it got elected to embrace all Indians and has started the complex but achievable work to ensure Financial, Educational & Healthcare inclusivity. The rest of us as part of India that has had the benefit of its economic growth have a duty to work alongside, independently and in partnership with the Government to create frameworks and platforms that also enshrine the mantra of Economic and Educational inclusivity for all Indians. goGopalgo is one such initiative.
Gopal is one of its initial ambassadors as we persuaded his parents and my parents for me to become his education buddy and my family to become his economic buddy along with his parents. This resulted in Gopal coming to stay with us in Mumbai and in under two years Gopal is reading, writing and speaking – English, Hindi and Marathi – and we have no doubt that Gopal will realize his ambition of going to university to study what is his current dream – computer science. Aman giving his time and the ebenfit of his education to Gopal on a daily basis in addition to the school that Gopal is now going to in Mumbai has achieved the impact of Gopals learning – the pride & joy on his parent’s face, the smile on Gopal as takes on the world through his desire to learn is infectious. IMAGINE the impact that Gopal will have on his family, his village, his larger community – IMAGINE – THE IMPACT MILLION OF GOPALS (BOYS & GIRLS) WILL HAVE ON INDIA – Join us to create pride, joy and smiles. We are developing a framework that will forge a pathway and persuade the employers and the employer’s children to economically & educationally adopt their domestic, migrant workers children – so that over time all children get access to education and a path to university. ASHA will also be deployed overtime to develop an educational platform for the children of domestic, migrant workers who cannot move to the cities where their parents work.
goGopalgo & Learners Academy
Children who relocate from villages to cities where their parents work and go to schools in the cities face a major issue with regards to the curriculum that they have to adopt to. These children come from villages where there is either no school and if there is a school it lacks the resources to quality education. Hence these children whilst full of potential, exceedingly bright with a hunger to learn are left in schools as the curriculum does not cater to their needs of catch up and integration and a smooth assimilation.
In partnership goGopalgo & Learners Academy are working on a project to achieve the following:
+ a transition curriculum that caters to these children’s learning needs and brings them to par
+ extra office hours that the schools can enable to allow for teachers to give time to these children
+ work with education boards & policy makers at the State & Central Government to have a policy that caters to the needs of these children
+ work with the local Panchayats in the villages and other stakeholders to leverage technology within the facilities in the villages to educate these children through EduTech – THIS IS POSSIBLE TO ACHIVE OVER TIME.
Learners Academy and their trustee Sumeet Gupta have committed to partner with goGopalgo and allocate their resources to develop the above.
Meet Mukesh, his wife Girja Devi and their delightful young boys – Shyam & Saurabh. Mukesh is a domestic, migrant worker in Mumbai and his wife and their two wonderful boys live in Hathlibodra (a village in the state of Jharkhand). Aman & goGopalgo have been working very closely with Mukesh and achieved success in getting him sponsored to firstly start the process of Mukesh being educated through night school and Aman further supplementing with his time.
Two years later Mukesh speaks working English but understands it fully. He is now going to night school again top learn the basics of computers and again being supplemented by Aman and goGopalgo. His children are receiving an education in the local village school with time being given over zoom by Aman and Aman’s friends as well – the beginning of student being teachers network and giving their time to fellow students in the villages of India. Ove the next two years Shyam & Saurabh will come to Mumbai with their mother to continue their education as well as all be together as a family.
Let’s come together to get all domestic, migrant workers and their children educated.