Reva members take out the awareness rally in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Only education can improve the lives of children in slums.

With this aim, Right to Education and Vision for All (Reva), a group of BIT-Patna students, on Sunday visited the slums near Ashiana Nagar.

Holding placards with messages like “Padhna Har Bachche Ka Adhikar Hai” (Education is the right of every children), the Reva members took out a rally from the institute to Ashiana Nagar.

During the visit to the slums, the Reva members acquainted the parents of the slum children the importance of education. Around 200 Reva members took part in the march.

“Reva is on a mission to educate slum children. We started teaching slum children four years ago. Our members visit the slums near the institute once a week to educate the children. They impart free education to children below 10 years, while those between 11 and 15 years are brought to BIT every week by an institute-owned bus for dance, singing and drama classes. But as we cannot educate every child, we thought of taking out this awareness rally,” said Ashish Ranjan, the convenor of Reva and a teacher at BIT-Patna.

On whether such awareness programmes can have an impact on the masses or not, Neha, a first-year BIT student of computer science and engineering department, said: “I am confident that the rally would have an impact on the masses,” she said.

Anuradha Devi, a slum-dweller who lives near Ashiana Nagar, said: “Their (Reva) lecture was very thought-provoking. I am thinking of sending my children to the nearby government school.”