The faces of the Scholarship program

Richa (right) and friend striking a pose for the camera

As my internship is drawing to a close this month I find myself reminiscing about my work over the last six months. It is amazing how quickly time has gone by and how much work I still want to do but have very little time to do it in. One of my biggest projects during this internship has been developing a database of WLC’s scholarship program that helps poor children attend good schools. Over the last six months I have been visiting each and every one of these students in their homes to interview, photograph and collect information to build an accurate database. Part of my job is to literally take these names and faces and turn them into numbers so that the information can be more effectively managed. The more fun part of course is meeting incredible people hearing their stories.

It has been an interesting journey visiting 145 homes and drinking that many cups of chai and eating twice as many Parle-G biscuits (staple snack of India) offered by the hospitable parents of these children (it is customary in India to offer visitors something to eat and drink, no matter how poor the home is and it is extremely rude not to accept the offering even if you have been to five other homes that day and already drank 5 cups of chai and ate 10 biscuits). The families and homes come in every size and variation ranging from cement homes with television sets to plastic covers stretched over poles on the ghat. Each of these families has a unique story and I have been humbled beyond measure hearing each and every one of them.

Sonu selling candles and flowers in the evening

Two scholarship children who have a very special place in my heart (only because I see them all the time around Assi Ghat) are Richa Gaur and Sonu Sahani. Both are approximately between the ages of 10-12 (it’s hard to say how old children are because parents rarely keep track and documentation of births is spotty). These children live very close to the Ganga Mahal and it’s hard to go a day without seeing one or both of them going about their lives. Our initial meeting involved both of them trying to hustle me with sales for candles. Many of the children living on the ghats sell candles to tourists, who then light and float the candles into the Ganga for good luck. Both of these kids are up early in the morning selling their candles, getting ready for school coming home, attending their tutorial sessions, doing their homework and then selling their candles again in the evening. At first it was difficult for me to digest the idea of children working for their family’s livelihood. But after being here for six months I have learned that my concept of what is right and wrong is often relative and context dependent.

Over the last six months my relationship with the Sonu and Richa has gone from “didi candle?” to a polite “didi namaste” (didi=sister), thanks to the currency of working for WLC. Richa literally lives right beneath our balcony. Her father runs a tea stall on Assi Ghat and the whole family lives and works under a makeshift home composed of four poles and a plastic cover built adjacent to the Ganga Mahal building. It is hard to imagine living like this, completely exposed to the elements with no privacy, but this is their reality. Despite their living conditions, the family lives with great dignity, keeping their little space as clean as a whistle and religiously sweeping their section of the ghat every morning.

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning to watch the sun come up from the balcony I often see Richa combing her hair and getting ready for school. You could never tell that she lives under a shack by the river if you saw her in her school uniform. The uniform is treated with the greatest respect, always kept tidy and pressed. For me, the uniform is a symbol of hope that one day she and her family won’t have to live under a shack.