Pathbhavan is a Learning & Development Center located near the Sanjay Nagar slum, Sama, Vadodara. This is an after-school program where children spend their weekday evening from 5PM to 9PM daily focussed primarily on academics. On the weekends and holidays, they are engaged in many extra curricular like arts/crafts, public speaking activities, inter-team competitions, hosting and preparing for events, playing sports in the nearby garden etc.
Rationale
Lack of quality education, awareness, resources, and belief in irrational practices, superstitions, domestic violence, malnutrition are few of the primary factors which compel children from families of limited means to miss out on opportunities of growth. Such children lose out on emotional, physical and social development and are more prone to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, lack of nutrition and so on.
Without quality education, the children are unable to unlock their full potential. Many grow up in the slums as alcoholics, drug addicts, anti-socials, and petty criminals. The high rate of drop-outs in children from the schools, mainly at pre-secondary level, is largely due to lack of educational assistance/support at home, deprivation of interest/motivation/eagerness for continuing education and paucity of financial resources.
Over the periods we are constantly observing the trend of sending children to work for earning at early age as child labor or to the family’s menial business. Bullying, narrow minded competitions, sibling rivalry are other challenges which need to be addressed often along with academics and other extracurricular training.