The Open Door Project: Bhukkad - The Hungry One

The Open Door Project, a path breaking initiative to induce more and more private schools to take the lead in creating space for disadvantaged children in their schools and give them an education they will otherwise probably miss, was today formally launched in Mumbai. Despite so much being done at Government, NGO and Private sector level, one third of Indian children do not have access to quality education and over 8 million are out of schools. Government and individual actions are laudatory, but the size of the problem exceeds the best efforts yet. It is therefore a time to seek institutional participation to contribute to this enormous and yet the most critical task – of ensuring the there is no child left without an education. The Open Door Project started with a simple observation – That a child, hungry for knowledge, will always find a way to learn. An initiative of The Millennium Schools, a national chain of  private not for profit schools, educating over 35,000 students , which took the lead and decided to open its portals to disadvantaged children from surrounding and neighboring areas after school hours, The Open Door Project wants to ensure that children from slums and the areas around are offered similar facilities and education as children from well off families who make up the roster in the schools - same teaching standards, same facilities, same quality of education. The Open Door Project is also aligning with NGOs, supporting their effort in reaching out to disadvantaged children. A start has already been made with Kat Katha which works with Children of sex workers and now Salaam Baalak Trust, which works with street Children.