Children attend classes at Deshbandhu Primary Hindi Vidyalaya. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, Feb. 8: Ten months ago, seven-year-old Manika Das did not even know how to hold a pencil. Being the daughter of a migrant labourer from Bihar, she did not have a chance to go to school.

Today, she can not only write her name but count up to 100, thanks to Child In Need Institute (CINI), an NGO. Manika, who is among the 537 regular students of Deshbandhu Primary Hindi Vidyalaya, a government-run institution on the banks of the Mahananda river near Siliguri, has now learned the alphabet too.

Manika and other 90 children who have joined formal education this year were picked up by the North Bengal unit of the CINI.

“The children picked up by us are sent to one of the four preparatory centres we run in Siliguri where they are readied for mainstream education,” said Marissa Dunne, CINI’s unit co-ordinator.

The organisation also runs four coaching centres which provide educational support to the children.

CINI has also built the walls of a classroom of the Hindi Vidyalaya. Earlier, the three-foot high wall of the classroom exposed the students to wind and rain. A study conducted by the NGO in 2005 in many wards of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation found that around 800 children were not attending classes. Since 2006, CINI has initiated 168 children into formal education.

The NGO has also offered to provide teachers it had trained for filling up the vacancies of para-teachers in the Hindi Vidyalaya.

“But the district authorities are yet to respond to the offer,” said Marissa.