Back in class, after the work took him out of it

The coastal belt of Amreli district sees a great deal of movement. Families follow work in and out of the industrial and agricultural areas around Jafrabad, and children move with them.

Where a job lasts, children get enrolled in a local school and can study. Where it does not, each move puts their education on pause. Migration is undertaken for the family’s sake, and it works — but it carries effects on the children that are hard to undo. Having schools nearby is the first requirement. Having schools nearby and actually getting an education are two different things.

Ajay is one of those children. He is enthusiastic, likes to study, likes to play with his friends, and is good at activities outside the classroom. What broke was continuity: with each move his studies fell further behind, until the gap was wide enough that going out to earn seemed the more sensible option. He started working. What followed was the disappointment that comes with that.

What the centre did

Chakuben, one of our volunteers, helped him enrol in the Center for Learning Assistance.

He started coming to classes, and the interest came back. He also enrolled in school, though at first he skipped most of it. The centre gave the enthusiasm somewhere to go — he began attending regularly, took part in the student activities, made friends there, explained things to them and asked Chakuben about what he did not follow.

Today he is studying, playing with his friends, and in school.

That is the whole mechanism, and it is not complicated: someone in the village knew the child had stopped, a class existed for him to come back to, and an adult had time for him when he got there.