Dropout aims to improve the life of slum children

He has been striving hard to pull them out of the quagmire of drug addiction and crime

Perhaps no one knows the pain of leaving school at an early age better than Mamoon Akhtar. Son of a labourer in a fabrication workshop, Akhtar had to leave his reputed English medium school when he was in class IX because his parents could no longer pay his fees.

Living in a slum at Tikiapara in Howrah district, where drug peddling and wagon breaking are a natural profession and prostitution is a compulsory indulgence, Akhtar could have easily walked into the world of easy money and flesh racket but he preferred to swim against the current-- lift not only himself and also thousands of unfortunate children living in the slums of Tikiapara Railway yard and its adjacent areas from the morass of drugs, crimes and prostitution.

He openly admits: “I live in an area where children are forced to earn money. They either use to work in small manufacturing units or go and steal goods from the railway yard. They resort to
addiction and drugs. What was more dangerous was that people use them as drug peddlers because they do not attract the attention of the police.

“Life was miserable and I wanted to do something for them. I knew that unless I ensure them education I will not be able to keep them away from these vices. Neither I had education nor money,” Akhtar said.

Asked how it all started, Akhtar ruminated, “One day I was sitting with my sister when a child from a nearby slum approached us. He said his father was beating his mother mercilessly. I’d known the child and his family for quite some time and I knew his father was a drug peddler. We went with him immediately and found the man was forcing his wife into prostitution and was beating her up because she refused to obey him”.

“That day I was successful in saving that woman from her brutal husband and stopped her from going to that perpetual hell . But I was haunted by this traumatic brutality and was really worried about the effect it would have on the child’s
psyche,” he said. “The boy wept and later told me he wanted to study. In fact this was no isolated incident in this slum. Children of almost every slum in the locality are confronted with a similar
situation day in and day out,” he added.

Samaritan Help Mission (SHM) was thus conceived with the aim of pulling these children out of the quagmire of drug peddling, addiction, prostitution or destitution that would transform them into delinquents.

In February 1999, with just 60 children and just one motto – help people in need, not by creed – the school started in Akhtar’s house. Since then the school has come a long way and it is now not just a rehabilitation centre for the children of lesser parents but it is a ray of hope for the slum dwellers of Howrah.

In the beginning, the financial condition of SHM was precarious and the annual budget was mere Rs 38,000 per annum. Out of this, Mamoon and his friends contributed Rs 10, 000 and the rest was raised through door-to-door collection in the locality and from some small offices.
“It was an uphill task and required persistent and tireless efforts. I motivated the local college-going poor girls of the locality to offer their services by teaching these children for a nominal honorarium of Rs 100 per month,” Akhtar said.

Now, more than a decade after the incident, Mammon has not forgotten the pains of being forced to quit school. At present, he runs a school in Tikiapara in Howrah with about 2,000 students who just pay Rs 5 per month. Also, the SHM runs Samaritan Mission School, an English medium school for the poor children of all communities, where quality education and online training  are ensured. With a student strength of 880 boys and girls it has classes from pre-nursery to class VIII and plans of adding one class every year.

The SHM also runs vocational training project which supports 200 underprivileged women and girls by helping them to earn between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000 per month, a micro-credit programme and a health care and awareness centre.

“Through our micro-credit progra­m­me we provide loans from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 at a very low rate of interest to the women who have completed the vocational training programme and want to start their own business,” Akhtar said.

When asked about his future plans, Akhtar said: “I want to establish vocational training projects for the unemployed literates, semi-literates and illiterate boys and girls of the community and start another English medium school for the large group of children who are deprived of basic right of education still today”.

The help for Mamoon comes as people know about his work. Organisations and caring friends have come to his aid. Even the American Consulate has been impre­ssed by his work. As the efforts by Mam­oon grow from strength to strength, he said that there are many responsibilities and a large number of underprivileged masses to be taken care of. His quest only goes on with only one aim that no child should be deprived of schooling, even if he has limited resources.