Through an initiative called Éclair, Delhi University students get together to teach children from poor families at a park in Roop Nagar
When Jalnidh Kaur moved from Ludhiana to Delhi for her graduation, she brought along with her not just her stuff but also an initiative she had launched earlier in April. Kaur, a first-year student of BA (Hons) Economics at St Stephen’s College, had started teaching a group of about 12-15 poor children in her hometown, Ludhiana, in April. She called the initiative Éclair (French for enlighten). Soon, help started pouring in, and a few volunteers came forward to work with her. Soon, it became a kind of informal class for the children who were later enrolled in schools.
After joining Stephen’s in Delhi last July, Kaur started teaching children in a park in Roop Nagar, North Campus. “It was sometime in November last year that I thought of doing the same here, so I looked around and found a building that was being constructed in front of a park. In the building, there were lots of construction workers who were staying there along with their families, and I had often seen their children roaming on the streets, playing around. I thought that since they don’t go to schools, they can be given some basic knowledge here,” says the 18-year-old. Éclair conducts classes every day for one hour in the evening, from 4-5 pm and 5-6 pm. Éclair now has about 10 volunteers from both St Stephen’s and SRCC. Each of them is allotted a particular day or days to teach. “Earlier we had about 7-8 children. But they were children of construction workers who migrated after their work was over, so now we have about 5-6 students. The children are in the age group of 4-7 years and don’t go to school. Some of them have older siblings who go to government schools in the vicinity and, while returning from their school, they also come for the classes,” says Kaur.
When Jalnidh Kaur moved from Ludhiana to Delhi for her graduation, she brought along with her not just her stuff but also an initiative she had launched earlier in April. Kaur, a first-year student of BA (Hons) Economics at St Stephen’s College, had started teaching a group of about 12-15 poor children in her hometown, Ludhiana, in April. She called the initiative Éclair (French for enlighten). Soon, help started pouring in, and a few volunteers came forward to work with her. Soon, it became a kind of informal class for the children who were later enrolled in schools.
After joining Stephen’s in Delhi last July, Kaur started teaching children in a park in Roop Nagar, North Campus. “It was sometime in November last year that I thought of doing the same here, so I looked around and found a building that was being constructed in front of a park. In the building, there were lots of construction workers who were staying there along with their families, and I had often seen their children roaming on the streets, playing around. I thought that since they don’t go to schools, they can be given some basic knowledge here,” says the 18-year-old. Éclair conducts classes every day for one hour in the evening, from 4-5 pm and 5-6 pm. Éclair now has about 10 volunteers from both St Stephen’s and SRCC. Each of them is allotted a particular day or days to teach. “Earlier we had about 7-8 children. But they were children of construction workers who migrated after their work was over, so now we have about 5-6 students. The children are in the age group of 4-7 years and don’t go to school. Some of them have older siblings who go to government schools in the vicinity and, while returning from their school, they also come for the classes,” says Kaur.
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