Streetchildren of Lake Town and Patipukur — all below five — need no longer idle away hours on the footpaths.

About 15 National Cadet Corps (NCC) members, all students of Patipukur Pallisri Vidyalaya, have volunteered to take on the responsibility of imparting informal education to them, as part of an NGO project.

The project had shown signs of winding up, till a teacher of Patipukur Pallisri Vidyalaya — also a councillor of South Dum Dum Municipality — sent across a few NCC members of her school to revive it.

“These cadets are mostly students of Classes VIII and IX and are not formally trained to teach streetchildren. But they managed very well. Now, their students are able to read and write,” said Rita Roy, the teacher under whose supervision the cadets started working.

The project was started by local NGO Jhansi Bahini to educate streetchildren on an experimental basis in December 2003. It was selected by South Dum Dum Municipality to impart informal education to streetchildren as part of the civic body’s literacy drive.

Accordingly, the NGO engaged a teacher for the purpose. “But the lone person found it difficult to carry out the task of teaching over 25 children and the project future turned uncertain,” elaborated Roy.

Herself an NCC officer, Roy planned to draft 15 girl cadets of her school into service to implement the project successfully. “With 15 cadets and the one teacher, the project went forward smoothly,” she added.

Tumpa Samanta, one of the cadets and a student of Class IX, teaches the streetchildren eagerly. “We come to the school at 8 am and after teaching the children for two hours, go to school ourselves. Our classes start at 11 am. We don’t find it difficult to teach and pursue our own studies at the same time,” she said.

The success of the project has drawn plaudits from South Dum Dum Municipality, which plans to revive similar schools with the help of NCC members from schools elsewhere.

“We have already decided to approach other schools for NCC members to conduct such schools for streetchildren. The schools are short of teachers,” said Sreehir Bhattacharjee, chairman of South Dum Dum Municipality.