In 1996, the Society had started a non-formal school in a clubhouse in Jagaddal without any infrastructure. The aim was to give underprivileged children in the areas a chance to receive an education. “There was no provision for mid-day meals for them, we only looked after the education part,” explained Saikat Basu, secretary of the Society, who is also a teacher at Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission. That is when a handful of ex-students of Ramakrishna Mission took the initiative to scale up the project.

A few of them who worked with Asha for Education in the US, a voluntary organisation that raises funds for educational projects in India, also helped. Asha sanctioned an amount of $10,000 to the Society with which the latter acquired land in Jagaddal and Sonarpur for construction of permanent schools. However, it was only in 2003 that the buildings were finally completed.

At present, both the schools cover the students’ educational needs till Class IV. Together they have 110 kids on their rolls. Most of the students at Sonarpur school come from the slums in the vicinity like Radha Govinda Pally, Dolmoth, Ghasiara and Arabinda Nagar (picture below by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya). “I earn money by distributing water in the neighbourhood,” said 12-year-old Bibhas Bachhar, who is in Class IV.
Burdened with the responsibility of adding to the meagre family income, the children can’t afford to buy supplies and clothes. “We try to distribute uniforms to them once every year,” said Sabita Ghosh, a teacher at the school.

The student strength in Jagaddal is 78. Six children stay on campus, including Rupa, who is suffering from thalassaemia.

The other five have already completed their studies at the primary school and are now in government high schools in the neighbourhood. They serve as inspiration to their juniors who have a tough fight ahead before they can make it to high schools.

Nabamita Mitra

The Diary

A New Year terrace party at Apsara Apartment on Park Street

Phoenix

A broken easel...
Torn canvas...
A dishevelled cluster of brushes..
Smudged paints...
The Poet...
In a paroxysm of pain
sadistically visits his bruised dreams
Masterpiece-ing a ruthless collage.
And... on the lava of this pregnant chaos
Is born his Poetry.

Priyanka Saha,
2nd yr MA, CU

Lost and found

She stared at her, the flawless her,
her pink lips slight apart,
her forehead small, her eyes so large
Oh! Didn’t they have a heart?
Her tiny palms made tiny fists,
her snub nose red with cold
Her cheeks had lost their healthy glow,
and she was not even a day old!
The trash bin was large for her
but for bosoms warm she craved
Unwanted she, the unloved one
so why had god have her saved?
The chill in the air in the winter night
was too much for her to bear,
But she felt the warmth seeping in, hiding her from the night’s harsh glare
She picked her up and held her tight
as she felt her melt within
I’ll take her home, thought the nine-year-old
Her home? The roadside bin.

Oindrila Chatterjee,
Class XI, Calcutta Girls’ High School

Tongue-tied

So complicated your heart is,
entangled in the poems of mine,
the crimson sky paints your voice,
my forlorn heart still opines.
The aroma of your chaste touch,
whispers in my lonely flights,
unspoken and unheard your love is,
you stay awake, a million nights.
One day you will speak,
my prayers may be wrong,
my guitar laments your loss,
I wish you were a song.

Archan Bhattacharya,
1st yr BA Ll.B, Hazra Law College

ChitChat

Students stage a play at the annual fest of St Teresa’s Secondary School. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Candle craft

Christmas eve was celebrated in a special way at Oxford Junior with a candle decoration workshop for children, organised in association with Sasha and Asha Niketan, an NGO.

The children were first introduced to the workshop conductors Sankar and Rana from Asha Niketan. A demonstration of decorating and colouring a candle followed. The method of decorating a jelly candle was also shown. The participants were then given the colours, tools and a candle each to work upon. It was an engaging experience for the 25-odd children in the four-14 age group.

By the end of the session, each participant had made a decorated candle which they took away as a Christmas gift from the Oxford Junior store.

Power presentation

Diya Bhattacharyya and Bahnisree Ghosh from St John’s Diocesan Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Calcutta, emerged the junior group winners of Powerplay 2005-2006, the 4th inter-school PowerPoint presentation contest held recently.

It was the first time that the school participated in the contest. The girls made nine slide presentations in two hours on the topic “The power of FM” in an intra-school contest in which they came second. For the inter-school round, they made 11 slide presentations on the topic “My PC, My brain”. There were 3000-odd competitors from 25 schools in the junior finals.

Besides the girls winning the first prize, the school was also declared the most IT-savvy school, thanks to the participation from over 300 students from classes IV to IX. The Heritage School topped the contest in the senior group.