Once beggars, these kids now go to school

Tribune News Service

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Nawanshahr, June 10

It was in 2016 when Gagandeep Kaur decided that instead of only thinking about it, she must do something for the children who beg on the streets. Six years have passed, and she has done what she had thought. Nearly 150 children who were in begging are now studying in government schools.

This is what Gagandeep has achieved in these years. She not only helped them in taking admissions in government schools, but also organises evening classes for an hour daily to check what they are learning at school. She has an NGO called BhuWorth. She explains why she named it — “Zameen naal Jude hoye’ — this is what the name suggests and I want them to grow in life.

Gagan said: “These children have so much of talent that go waste when they beg. I always had an urge to see some change in a district where Shaheed-E-Azam Bhagat Singh was born. I couldn’t stand that children were begging for money on this land, which is when I started this work.”

The NGO also works in collaboration with the district office of Social Security and Women and Child Development department and a seminar was held on Friday wherein these children were also told about a sensitive and an important topic of good touch and bad touch. The seminars were held at different places.

Gagan said she wants to work in other districts too. However, she has already working in Jalandhar and Jammu. “I have managed to admit children from Jalandhar and Jammu in the schools. Whenever I find some child begging, I immediately reach his/ her parents and convince them that how important it was to study and then get a job,” she said.

To make them excel in different fields, different competitions are also organised by the NGO such as various sports activities and drawing/art activities. The founder of the NGO shared that these children possess a quality which is rare these days i.e. ‘honesty’. “We need such honesty today which is why these children need to get educated,” Gagan said.

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