meet the heroes: rohit

 

Name: Rohit Age: 13 Grade: 2nd Aspiration: To stay away from crime & care for his mother. Most Recent Achievement: Promoted straight to 2nd grade after starting school for the 1st time. Family: Single working mother is a maid.

Rohit was picked up literally from rags by Eklavya founder Amit Garg. He only has a mother as a single parent at home, who works at 3 different ‘Kothis’ as a maid to afford a livable wage. Upon much inspiration and preparation, he was admitted to Vinayak Public School in 1st grade since he had never seen a formal school before. To everyone’s surprise, he was promoted straight to 2nd grade owing to his high potential of learning.  Like many of his classmates at Eklavya, Rohit was once oblivious of the world of opportunities that lay so close to him, and was well engulfed already into a life of picking rags for earning quick money and spending it on cheap drugs (like nail paint remover). At his age, seeing no hope beyond a struggling single mother, and kids younger than him doing better in higher grades, he almost gave up again on Eklavya, and on his mother’s inspirations. But Amit (Eklavya) intervened immediately – reaching out to his mother, and engaging him with Prashant (Worthee) for a 1:1 mentoring session. He scored 75% to 80% marks in most subjects since then, and is a regular participant in questions and answers on science and technology topics with his mentors.

His last ask of us was not of resolving a fight with kids who tease him, but of how to get access to Eklavya’s computers so he can improve his proficiency, and thus self esteem to do even better in school.

We hope Rohit’s story stirs some relevance to your life, as it did to ours; which is why we regularly skip the comforts of weekends and activities to spend time with him and his friends. To enable another model citizen (that he so badly wants to become), or perhaps a model citizen like yourself, who will help other similar children rise above the adversities they inherit for no fault of their own.