Sai Kripa - Helping Orphans and Abandoned Children since 1991

Sai Kripa - "Sai Sikhsa Sansthan"
      The streets of Delhi are full of orphan and destitute children. These children are abused everyday and are in need of love and care. More than a decade ago, Anjina Rajgopal, now the Executive Director of Sai Kripa, while going for her work use to see a number of destitute children on the streets of Delhi. Every time she saw an infant lying on the street she was overcome by a feeling of sadness and felt helpless. One day she saw a few people hitting a small child. She went to his rescue and managed to stop the people from hitting him anymore. When she tried to talk to him, she realized he was mentally challenged. On inquiring she found out that he was a destitute and had no family of his own. As she didn't have the heart to leave the child on the streets, therefore she decided to take him to her house. Living with this boy Rajat she realized that there are many other such children who are being abused on the streets and have no support system at all. At that point of time she decided to start a home for orphan children. As the number of children in the home grew, Anjina realized the need to leave her job and be with the children, as they needed care. But she also knew the importance of having a regular income to run the home. Therefore she started approaching people for support. Gradually a few individuals and organizations came forward to support the home. With the help of this support a proper home for the orphan and destitute children was set up in 1990.
      As the project started catering to the needs of these children, they realized there is a scarcity of good educational facilities available to the disadvantaged children. Keeping this need in mind, the project's focus gradually extended to education. Initially Sai Kripa thought starting a school in the urban area, but after an expressed need by a few nearby villagers, Sai Kripa in 1991 started a school 'Sai Shiksha Sansthan' in a Village Vazidpur, a few Kilometers away from Delhi.
      The school is providing formal education to children from Vazidpur and the neighboring villages. The school endeavors to maintain the same standard of education as anything other good school.
      However, enrolling children from this village was not an easy task, as only a few parents understood the value of education. Convincing the rest of the parents about the benefits of education took time, patience and tact and then to motivate them to educate their daughters was a fresh effort altogether. Apart from visits to individual households, meetings and talks had to be organized with the heads of the families to change their attitude. Finally after a lot of resistance the projects efforts paid off as the attitude & hostile indifference gradually changed to that of grudgingly curious interest.
      But the school had very limited funds and the parents can effort very limited fees. As the school is far from the main town, therefore the overheads kept increasing. In 1995 Concern India Foundation started supporting this school by providing the entire salary and the school rent. Gradually some other small donor also joined hands to help the school to function properly.
Since these children are the first generation of their families to achieve literacy, teaching them was not an easy task. Initially it had Kindergarten to 2nd Grade. Gradually, as the number of children grew and the parents started putting pressure on the school to add on senior classes, more classes were introduced. A number of children cleared out their Higher Secondary through 'Open School System' with the help and regular guidance from Sai Siksha Sansthan.

Success Story:
      Mohammed always dreamed of going to school and getting a good education. He wasn’t able to do so because his family was too poor to send him. When Mohammed was thirteen; his family moved to the town to Vazidpur. Through a special educational program, the family learned of the Sai Shiksha Sanstan School located just outside of New Delhi, and enrolled the boy.

      After three years in a non-formal education program to assess his progress, Mohammed enrolled in formal education at the school. Now, he is a bright 17-year-old young man studying and working hard to make good marks so he can go to college or get a good job. The Sai Shiksha Santan School gives kids a chance to get off the streets and get a formal education. Many of the students are either orphans or abandoned children. Normally none of these children would be able to attend school because they are simply too poor. The Sai Kripa project was started 15 years ago and has been helping struggling children ever since. The project has the ability to care for and educate 300 students and is presently at 80% capacity.