Posted: 23/11/2010
Mr. P. Chidambaram, Honorable Home Minister of India, Mr. K.R. Kamath, Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank, H.E Mr. Peter Varghese, the Australian High Commissioner to India, H.E Mr. Bob Hiensch, the Ambassador of Netherlands to India, Mr. Sandip Ghose, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India, H.E. Mr. Rupert Holborow, the New Zealand High Commissioner to India, H.E Mr. Kenneth Thompson, the Ambassador of Ireland to India, Mr. Gopal Pillai, Home Secretary of India, Board members of Asha, our distinguished overseas guests, esteemed members of our audience, and dear children.
Tonight, we are once again making history; this year, 170 students from our city’s slums have performed the extraordinary feat of overcoming extreme poverty to be admitted to Delhi University and other highly reputed private colleges. A higher education movement is gaining momentum in our slums, as year upon year, more of our children are accessing it, and in so doing, inspiring hundreds of young children who are looking up to these trailblazers and seeking to follow in their footsteps.
The UN estimates that the number of people in the world living in slums passed 1 billion in 2007. Here, in New Delhi, India’s capital, the slums represent over 30% of the city’s population. Huts are about 50 sq ft in size and the density of population is about 10,000 persons per hectare. The majority of residents work in the informal sector, which is characterized by job insecurity and low wages. As families struggle to survive, many children are forced to work, to supplement the family income. Just one in five boys and one in ten girls go to school. The option of higher education remains an expensive dream.
When I first walked into Dr. Ambedkar slum in 1988, it was in the grip of a cholera epidemic. With a borrowed table and chair, I sat in an open space and treated hundreds of sick children. 22 years on, Asha works among 400,000 slum inhabitants focusing on programmes that address health, education, environment, housing and empowerment.
We began with health care and environment programmes. Asha Health Centres were established in all the colonies. The slum women’s associations organized by Asha were able to access improved basic services through the power of their collective voice. The 90’s saw Asha engage in pathbreaking work with the city’s government to provide land titles to slum families. A remarkable transformation in living conditions began to happen.
In January of 2008, the Hon. Mr. Chidambaram, whom we are so privileged to have with us today, accepted my invitation to visit an Asha area. Subsequently, he drew together India’s largest public sector banks, the Ministry of Finance, and Asha, to establish a loan scheme for the urban poor, that he launched in June of that year. Since the launch, millions of rupees have been given in loans by the banks for various purposes, and the repayment rate is an astonishing 99%.
When banks opened their doors to the urban poor, I realized that higher education for slum children was no longer a distant dream. The 170 children seated here are a wonderful testament to what can be achieved through hard work and determination, with help and support from friends who care. They have struggled against enormous odds - huge financial obstacles, the lack of space, the noise of the slum environment, power cuts for long hours, and absolutely no role models. Most of them are the first in their families, their entire villages or slums to go to University.
Asha has focused on providing individual counseling to students during their final years of high school, and guiding them through the entire college admission process. Asha then awards all Delhi University students with scholarships towards college tuition and other expenses, and also facilitates access to bank loans for private colleges. Punjab National Bank has taken the lead in this regard, and I am so pleased that Mr. Kamath is with us today.
The opportunities for enhanced learning have been seized with great enthusiasm. Children who would have once been working in roadside stalls, shining shoes, or picking rags, now have the confidence to attend university with much more privileged youngsters. After spending years longing for equality, they are finally experiencing it.
The Child Mortality Rate is one of the most sensitive barometers of the health and living standards of any community, and of the nation as a whole, as it is the result of a wide variety of inputs such as health, education, income, food availability, and access to safe water and sanitation, among other factors. The Asha model’s holistic approach has demonstrated a dramatic fall in the rate, from 149, once among the highest in the world, to 28.
The model is an example of how cities can be places of inclusion and participation, rather than exclusion and marginalization. A city cannot claim to be harmonious if large numbers of people cannot meet their basic needs while others live in opulence. A healthy, well-educated population is a major asset for any city, and knowledge is a pre-requisite for enhanced civic participation in the social, political and cultural spheres. The education of girls and young women generates powerful poverty–reducing synergies. An inclusive city produces social stability and economic benefits, and promotes positive outcomes for each and every individual.
I pay my tribute to Hon Mr. Chidambaram for his visionary leadership that has brought about so many historic and momentous achievements in our country. I am sure you will agree that he is a man of extraordinary gifts, great drive and great diligence. I thank you sir, for your commitment to promoting the discourse and practice of higher education among the impoverished children of the slums. It is my hope that your blessings will always be available to me and my team as we seek to pursue our vision of helping 5000 slum children to find a place in university in the next 5 years.
Each of the people seated on the dias today are invaluable in their commitment to seeing Asha’s higher education programme prosper. They have strengthened my hands through their faithful partnerships and for this they have my sincere thanks and admiration.
I would also like to thank our Friends of Asha around the world for their continued generosity and support, which we could not do without.
Finally, to the Asha students, I offer my warm congratulations on your extraordinary achievement. I wish you all the best for your university careers, and every success in your lives ahead. Education is about learning, a love for intellectual enquiry, and developing confidence and leadership. It is my sincere hope that this journey we have begun together may yet reap the reward of thousands of others like you enjoying all that a university education has to offer.
Thank you.
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Since joining Asha's women's group I have learnt new skills and have a lot more knowledge. If people can’t get their child admitted to school, or if they are sick, or if they want to open a bank account, I can help them with all these things.
Anwari, Kalkaji
