Dhanasekar left school without any qualifications. After he left he says, ‘I was going to work, and the work was very hard so sometimes I went, sometimes I didn’t go. I was not interested in anything, I was just idle.’
Now he’s a member of the Chennai Oasis India football team and comes for coaching three mornings a week. He is excited at the prospect of their first league match and says, ‘I want to be a big football player.’
He also comes to our tutorial classes, held in the SM Nagar community each evening. He is studying so he can pass his 10th standard exams, and then he wants to continue studying until he has passed his 12th standard.
Education
Children in India often lose out on their education. Those who live on the streets or on railway platforms don’t go to school. Neither do children who have been trafficked. Some children are made to earn money for their families, others live in villages where there are not enough good schools.
Pressure is put on some children to earn money for their families, or if parents are themselves are illiterate they cannot help their children with their homework or don’t motivate them to study and stay in school.
We encourage children who have left school without any qualifications to study and sit their exams though the National Open School distance learning programme. We also have homework clubs and tutorial classes, to help and motivate school children to study well. Net2work provides computer education to underprivileged children and young adults in Mumbai and Bangalore.
Vocational training
At our training centres in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, young people and adults from underprivileged backgrounds learn screen printing, traditional bead work and tailoring. Many then get jobs in our workshops and production units. Jacobs Well distributes it's fairly traded goods to a global audience. The centres also teach literacy, life skills and English conversation.
In February 2008, a training course teaching lifeskills, english conversation and computer skills was started in partnership with Blue Dart to train young men and women for employment in customer service industries.
>> Closing the gap
>>Reach for the stars
>>Benjamin’s story
>>How you can help – fund a place
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