Doorstep School

After two days at a middle-class, parent-paid tuition school, we definitely saw some contrasts today in our visit to a school called Doorstep (www.doorstepschool.org).  Doorstep School is a school that serves the children of migrant construction workers.  There are communities of migrant workers that travel around the region and live in tin shanty slums adjacent to construction sites.  Much like in the USA, the migrant nature of these families makes it challenging for these students to have continuity in their education, if any education at all.  Doorstep literally takes the school to their Doorstep.  They work with builders and contractors, some of which help fund teachers or provide space for these schools.  This fits in with the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) push in India.  On a side-note, there is actually a bill in parliament currently that would require all Indian corporations to donate 2% of profits to some CSR cause.  

Not only does Doorstep construct schools in these slums (they have 108 such sites in Pune, and more in Mumbai), but they also have Schools on Wheels.  These are buses that serve as classrooms for tent-cities in which there is simply no physical space for a school.  They also use these buses to transport students to study centers and municipal schools when possible. We saw a Doorstep study center, then a school on wheels near a tent-city, then a school in a slum, then a reading program in a municipal school. It was an interesting to see this intense poverty on a construction sight for a luxury apartment complex.  Talk about contrast.  

The teachers in these schools of course have very few materials, and teach mostly with manipulatives that are made by volunteers at Doorstep.  Despite this lack of resources, they are so proud of their schools, their classrooms, and their students.  These kids truly know and value the education they are getting, and it was humbling to see the joy in everyone in those schools despite the environment and context of their education.