September 5 is celebrated as Teachers’ Day in India and the Essar Foundation commemorated the occasion by organizing celebrations at schools near Essar sites.
In Mumbai, Foundation representatives along with a group of management students (who are interning with corporate citizenship program), visited the Subhashnagar Slum Cluster at Andheri, a suburb of Mumbai. Subhashnagar has almost 12,000 tenements and is home to around 3,000 children, many of whom drop out of school by age 10. Working with 300 of these children is the NGO Muskaan, providing supplementary education support in English thus enabling them to pursue quality education in low-cost English-medium schools.
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The teachers are from the community itself and the Foundation celebrated the day by paying tribute to these teachers. The volunteers worked with the children to create a skit about the life of Savitribai Phule (social reformer and wife of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule), who played an important role in the women’s rights movement in India.
The young children acted out different pieces Savitribai’s life and her efforts towards education of the girl child. The skit ended with the message ‘Educate the girl child to get the nation empowered’, as the volunteers and children thanked the teachers. Later the children with the volunteers performed songs and dances for the teachers and gifts were distributed to all.
Teachers’ Day was also celebrated with enthusiasm at Hazira, Gujarat. Representatives of the Foundation took the opportunity to thank the teachers associated with the Navchetan Vidhyalaya, Junagam village. Recognizing the dedication and good work that the teachers are doing in the region, Foundation felicitated all the teachers.
Bhagubhai Patel, trustee of the school and village sarpanch, and Rameshbhai Patel, deputy mamlatdar of Choriyasi taluka, were also present at the event.
