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Mahan Seva Sansthan (MSS)

Since 1989, Mahan Seva Sansthan (a CRY supported partner) has been working at integrated development by promoting sustainable education, health, environment conservation and livelihood initiatives for the marginalised communities in 46 hamlets of Udaipur district of Rajasthan.

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 Mahita

(This program is no longer supported by CRY)

"I want to be a teacher at Mahita."

My name is Anjum. I am in the 10th standard. I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I would like to teach Hindi and science. I want to talk English but I find it a little difficult. I will teach Hindi. To small children. It will be nice to teach in a school for little children. If possible, I would like to teach in Mahita. That is still my favourite school. I studied there before I joined this government school. Those days, I used to study in the morning and work during the day cutting supari. I did not like working but it would have been difficult for my mother to manage the house and my brothers.

When I finish my studies, I want to be like the teachers at Mahita. They were the best teachers I had. They were all very kind. It was easy to learn and understand when they taught. They made learning fun and I was always having a good time in school even though I was sleepy from all the work at home. I always got good marks. That is why my parents allow me to come to the government school for my high school. Even though it is difficult for them.

If I'm a good teacher my students will become doctors and engineers. I don't want to be a doctor or engineer. I want to be a teacher. It will be nice if someday my students will remember me like how I remember my teachers from Mahita.

Mahita is an ex-CRY grassroots level project based in Andhra Pradesh, India. Started by Mr. Ramesh Shekhar Reddy and prominent activist Ms. Geeta Ramaswamy along with the organisation's experienced and committed staff, Mahita empowers the weaker communities especially girl children and women and the minority communities in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

Mahita believes that education is one of the most important tools of social change and community empowerment. Through its intervention in this area, it has enabled:

• Mainstreaming of 5000 non-school going children, working children into regular schools, restoring to them their right to an education.
• Providing 750 working and non-school going adolescent girls with Computer Education like data entry operation etc.
• Ensuring 1200 working adolescent girls earn a living in the future by providing them with vocational courses like screen printing and beautician course along with education.
• Community linkages were built with Urban Health Post, Urban Community Development and District Collectorate.
• 300 girls studying at High school were trained in Child Rights Convention Campaign in 2 Government Girls High Schools.
• 42 self-help groups were formed involving 1260 members in thrift and credit programmes.

CRY's role in creating milestones

Mahita, is just one of the hundreds of child-development initiatives supported by CRY. For these projects, CRY does any or all of the following:

• Funding non-formal education centres and balwadis (pre-primary centres) for working children
• Funding the community organisers, giving them a perspective on their rights
• Helping NGOs, like Mahita, plan campaigns and programmes aimed at mobilising the community
• Providing training and organisational inputs that ensure the accountability and effectiveness of the programme
• Linking the child rights agenda with the macro issues of livelihood
• Developing leadership in the NGOs, and giving them inputs on how to advocate for community rights
• Linking up NGOs through the state and the country, enabling them to share experiences and learnings

This, in a nutshell, is what CRY attempts to do with each of the organisations and thousands of communities it works with. The core of which is the belief that each child has rights that society and the state owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be protected against exploitation and to participate in the decisions affecting her future. So when the work done by Mahita enables Anjum follow her dream, Mahita has only ensured that her family, the immediate community of which the family is part of and the local bureaucracy have all recognised this right of Anjum - the right to an education.