Our work
Classes, health camps, legal aid, skill training, food and relief, done week after week in the same places. Here is what each one looks like, with photographs from our own camps and classes.
Education
Education is the first right of every child, and in our society not every child gets it. We run weekly classes for children of poor families in the bastis of South Kolkata, in Sundarban villages and in the far districts of West Bengal. Books, pens, pencils and exercise books are provided free.
- The Shyamchak Pratibandhi Kalyan Samity’s residential school for children with disabilities (Biswajit Smriti Bishesh Abasik Vidyalaya) in Paschim Medinipur.
- Our school project, where judges and advocates have come to speak with parents about their rights.
- Support for an orphanage home in South Kolkata: education, health and legal help.
- A programme in the up-country districts that finds talented village children and backs them, in studies and in the arts, until they can stand on their own.
- Tailored classes and therapy support for children with disabilities, so that they learn alongside everyone else.
Health
In the villages, a hospital bill or a long journey is often the reason a treatable illness goes untreated. So the camp comes to the village. Our free camps in rural South 24 Parganas bring a general physician, ECG, blood sugar and blood pressure tests and free medicines, with an eye check-up and spectacles for ₹100.
On 8 January 2023 we ran a full-day health and eye camp at Kotalpur Sabuj Sangha, Kalyanpur, Baruipur, together with the Rotary Club and the Sangha’s members, with a dengue awareness session for the whole village. We have also organised seven blood donation camps.
Legal aid
The law is supposed to protect the poor most of all, and in practice it reaches them least. Our legal aid service works through a collective of retired judges, practising lawyers and social activists. It gives free advice, helps with litigation, and runs legal literacy sessions so that people know what they are entitled to before they need a court.
It is deliberately non-political and open to anyone in West Bengal who cannot afford a lawyer.
Relief and winter drives
Droughts, cyclones and floods come to the lower Gangetic delta every year, and they fall hardest on families whose homes are least able to take them. After a disaster we bring rations, medicines, drinking water and sanitary kits first, and help with shelter until homes are rebuilt where we can.
- July–August 2017: food and clothes to flood-hit Sundarban villages.
- April 2021: food and clothes for the families of a basti in Barrackpore destroyed by fire.
- Every winter: blanket and clothes drives in the villages we work in.
More of what we do
Skill training and jobs
Three centres run free vocational and short employment courses, and place trainees with companies. With training partners we have run Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (RAC) courses for unemployed young people.
Food and nutrition
Nutritious meals for children in the far villages of Medinipur, the Sundarbans and other rural areas, and nutrition awareness at our health camps.
Children with disabilities
Therapy sessions, tailored classes and support so that children with disabilities get their own identity, at partner schools in Paschim Medinipur and North 24 Parganas.
Child and women’s safety
Campaigns against child labour and child sexual abuse, and for women’s safety, alongside our legal aid work.
Art and culture
Finding and backing the talent of village children in music, drawing and dance, which otherwise fades for lack of any chance to grow.
Environment
Tree planting, environmental awareness in schools and community conservation, especially in the Sundarbans.
Camps and events
