tag-iconThis program helps people in extreme need

Sponsor educational expenses for a child from a poor family by Turnstone Global

This program helps people in extreme need

Sponsor educational expenses for a child from a poor family

Thank you!

This program is fully funded because of donors like you.

Impact

Ruma is now on her way to a better future

Ruma Naiya is an 8 year old girl who lives with her parents in an urban slum near Bidhan Nagar. Her father Susanta works as a rickshaw puller and her mother works as a domestic help. Ruma used to go with her mother for work. She had started working in houses to help her mom clean houses.

The volunteers of Turnstone Global conducted a survey in the colony. They identified Ruma during the survey. They counselled her parents to send her to school.

However, there was an initial reluctance from her parents. They refused saying that education was not important for Ruma as she is a girl. Furthermore, if she went to school, the income that she would earn as a domestic help would be lost to them

The volunteers did not lose hope. They continued to speak to her parents till they finally agreed to try it for a little while.

Ruma was a quick learner and she enjoyed coming to school. In a short while she began to read and write. She soon was placed in class 2 in the Turnstone Global school. This change in her levels of growth and education has had a huge positive impact on her parents.

Ruma's life changed when her parents who had once refused to send her to school, have decided that they will do anything for her to complete her education.

Her mother is determined that Ruma will grow up and work in an office and not work as a domestic helplike herself.

With a little help children like Ruma can break out of lives that force them into poverty.

Your help can make many more poor children like Ruma. You can donate so that they can get an education which can change their lives. You can give with confidence because every program listed is GIVEASSURED.

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About The Program

What the beneficiary gets
Nutrition
What you get
Tax Exemption
Periodic Reports
Program Description

Turnstone Global runs Vivekanandasahaj Path Vidyalaya, a non-formal primary school till class 8 for the children

Donations to this program covers the cost of teachers' salary, snacks and educational supplies.

Bashanti colony, adjacent to Ultadanga railway station, is one of the largest slums in Kolkata.

Most men in the slum work as working either as rickshaw pullers or as daily wage laborers. The women work as maids in apartments and residential complexes in neighboring areas.

Education was never a priority for the children of Bashanti Colony till Vivekanandasahaj Path Vidyalaya was opened. This school is situated inside the colony itself so that children do not have to travel.

Children between the age group of 4 to 18 years are identified through a field survey conducted in the project area. The parents are then counselled to enroll their children in a formal school so that they complete their education.

The session begins in March or April every year. The school operates from 2 pm to 6 pm for six days a week from Monday through Saturday.

There are 132 children who are now enrolled in the program. The Vivekanandasahaj Path Vidyalaya has not had any child drop out of this program

When you support this program you help a child with the foundation steps to his education.

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About The NGO

Turnstone Global
Turnstone Global Logo
Turnstone Global

Turnstone Global is a not for profit social enterprise working with relentless effort for the overall improvement of human lives, irrespective of age, gender, religious beliefs, cast, ethnic origin, birth place or disability status.

The organisation started in 1952, for the betterment of the lives of the visually challenged. Turnstone Global is headed by Dr. Kanchan Gaba, a 100% visually impaired lady, who fought against all odds to obtain her PhD in International Law and established herself as a lecturer of Calcutta University. Today, apart from being a lecturer, she is a social activist.

They work for the betterment of lives of the disabled, in particular, the visually impaired; to provide education, training with a view to rehabilitate them and improve their livelihood. A major focus area of the organisation is early intervention and prevention of blindness.

The scale of operations of Turnstone Global spans across eleven states, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Mizoram, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, with more than two hundred gram Panchayats.

They have touched the lives of more than one million in the past decade. At any given point of time eleven thousand beneficiaries are under their care. Several hundreds of them reside permanently with them.

The organisation undertakes programmes and plans its activities based on field level in-depth analysis of the demography and socioeconomic condition of the project area. Their endeavour is to involve community based organisations directly in their project areas where they cater to project planning, phase to phase implementation, monitoring and constant evaluation.

Turnstone Global has been creating impact with a force of 250 staff, more than 500 volunteers and networking partners working in 11 states, 24 cities and 200 Gram Panchayats in India, with its headquarter in Kolkata, through over 62 programs and community-based services.

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founders
Founded in 1991
NGO Leadership

Kanchan Gaba

areas of operation
Area of Operation
Area of Operation

Non Formal Education | children

location of work
Location of Work
Location of Work

West Bengal

awards
Awards And Recognitions
Awards And Recognitions

2012: Late Sudhatai and Sadanand Varde Smruti Puraskar

2016: Certificate from Constituent Board of Quality Council of India

last audited
Last Audited
Periodic Compliance Checks by GiveIndia

Renewals FY 19-20

Program Updates

Program Updates

22 September, 2023

An update on the program you are supporting

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Activities and work undertaken in the last 5-6 months

Total number of beneficiaries impacted was 77 out of which 84% were females, in Kolkata


Challenges faced and next steps

A total of 274 students were enrolled in the academic year 2022-23.


Stories from the ground

Vrihaspati is a student of class VI of our non-formal school. Her father Bakul is van puller and her mother works as the domestic help in the nearby housing. Initially, she also used to go to help her mother by assisting in her domestic work and both Bakul and his wife work hard to manage 3 square meal for their family and she was dropped out of school for this reason. But the afternoon session of our non formal school made it possible for Vrihaspati�s parents to send her in our school. Vrihaspati is extremely thankful for getting the nutritional tiffin which is always given to our students on regular basis. Now, she is always energetic to lead her class as class monitor and does not feel low. Her parents now dream of that their daughter will definitely stand on her feet and will secure a respectable job to support their family


21 December, 2022

Wonder under the Light of Education

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Activities and work undertaken in the last 5-6 months

At Basanti Colony Slum in Kolkata, West Bengal since last 6 months, continuous efforts by our field workers and field executives resulted in gaining the lost confidence of the parents who started thinking of stopping education of their children to enhance the family income as the pandemic caused huge financial crunch to them. Through our continuous support the students who had dropped out during the pandemic again resumed their regular school. To enhance their interest in studies we tried to avoid boring lectures. Instead we used different games and role plays to explain critical concepts of their curriculum. As we always believe that performing arts parallel to the non-formal /formal education can make that particular child more sensitive and productive towards life. Hence, to nurture the creative mind of every child of our slum school we insisted to celebrate National Girl child day, Republic day, world theatre day by performing various dance sequences and drawing competition among them. Through our continuous grooming we made each and every child more tolerant, mannerly and coherent towards their friends, neighbours and other fellow people. At present directly we are catering to around 84 slum children and around 235 individuals indirectly. We divide 84 students in 3 different groups according to their age and class. As our teaching method is quite unique and interactive, the children take lots of interest to attend their school. Moreover the supply of nutritious refreshment between their studies allow them to escape hunger pain and makes them more attentive towards their study or performance. Through this program we can transform child labour & child beggars of that slum into our students of non-formal school.


Challenges faced and next steps

For last 8 years Turnstone Global is running a non formal school for the drop out children of Basanti Colony slum which is the biggest slum at the heart of the city of Kolkata, West Bengal. The motto to run such a school is to give back the accessibility of education among the school dropout children of the slum dwellers or those children who never attend any school for their poor socio-economic condition. Post Corona pandemic the completely broken financial situation of almost every slum dwellers of Basanti colony bound them to bring sudden halt in attending our non formal school by their children as majority of the slum dwellers parents were using the hands of their children to earn money but our rigorous one to one counselling, door to door visit, supply of regular nutritious food, exercise books, pencils, erasers, reading books by our field executives, volunteers stop majority of drop outs from our school.To reduce the mental trauma caused by the covid pandemic we groomed our slum school children by involving them in various extra curriculum activities like dancing, drawing etc. Through this initiative we were able to bring good talents among the slum children whose performance in dancing and drawing is quite appreciable. Within next 6 months we want to enrol another 50 students with a mission that our initiative in imparting education among slum children can gift some talents to the society and to work on this we are planning to hire 1 or 2 good teachers and providing nutritious food subject to availability of the funds.


Stories from the ground

Piyali is our student at Vivekananda Sahajpath Non formal School since last six years. She is the elder daughter of her parents. Both of her parents work hard to earn the livelihood for their family. Her father worked as an auto driver before covid pandemic while her mother worked as a domestic help at their nearby households. During covid both of her parents lost their respective jobs which bound them to think of marriage of Piyali at the age of 14 years. Our strong intervention then by our field executive was to stop destroying Piyali’s life. To ensure the food at home at that time we supported their two square meals per day by providing dry ration for consecutive 6 months and between the time span we assisted her parents to find another daily job. Through this initiative we could save Piyali from drop out and she was able to continue her study at class VI keeping a big dream in her eyes. As always she is very regular & sincere in studies and always takes part in various extra curriculum activities organized at our school. She has a dream to be an air hostess in future. Piyali’s sincerity towards her study creates a belief in her parents that Piyali definitely will be able to earn her dream job to live her life with dignity and their poverty will be wiped out very soon.


7 June, 2022

Journey from darkness to light of Education

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Activities and work undertaken in the last 5-6 months

For one decade Turnstone Global is running its non-formal school at Basanti Colony. It is one of the largest slums in Kolkata, West Bengal for bringing back the light of education among the school dropout children of the slum dwellers or those children who never attend any school for their poor socio-economic condition. With the continuous corona pandemic effect and second wave of Corona, few of our school beneficiaries' either parents had lost their lives. To bring out from the trauma caused by the loss we provide counselling services towards that distressed child of that family including other family members. Due to the corona pandemic, we stopped providing direct school teaching to prevent corona infection among our beneficiaries rather we started teaching our 85 beneficiaries online by providing their old smartphones along with internet connection. Every month we bought an internet package for them so that their education remain uninterrupted. In such a way, we could prevent 95 per cent of students drop out. During this period we support our beneficiaries by giving them dry ration to feed their family because in this pandemic many of their parents have lost their respective jobs. Our constant support of food also eases the stress of the parents which directly enhance the attendance of our beneficiaries in our online classes. To get the continuous support of our education and food service the acceptance of our organisation as an authoritative body to enhance manifold among the minds of the poor parents of our beneficiaries.


Challenges faced and next steps

As we were providing online education to the slum children occasionally we can not reach our students due to non-availability over the phone allotted. To restore the communication we need to send our field executive to the slum. The fear of corona occasionally entrapped the family of our beneficiaries, out of that effect few students were losing motivation as well to continue their studies. But our field executives boost their morale on their every visit and influence them to join online classes. In the coming 6 months, we will reopen our physical school if the government permits otherwise will continue our online education more profoundly and will enrol more students if funds permit further.


Stories from the ground

9 yrs old Sampa Sardar is the 4th child of her parents. Her father is a van rickshaw puller and her mother works as a domestic help in the adjacent locality of Bidhan Nagar. Sampa in her very tender age of 5 yrs used to share her concern towards her family responsibility and in that regards she used to share her helping hand with her mother in her house chores and simultaneously trying to read old books which were given to her by her mother who collected those from a different household where she works as domestic help. Before our intervention, Shampa almost regularly used to climbed up on the railway platform bridge to see all the colourful pages of those books and requested many daily passengers to read those books for her but seldom she was been entertained. In the meanwhile our volunteer got in touch with her and had to counsel her parents our volunteer admitted Shampa at our non-formal school in that slum at std-I, now she had been promoted to class II. She is very modest and humble and enjoys the study environment. Nowadays she becomes very much attentive in her studies and she is living with a dream to be a high schoolmistress in her near future.


28 November, 2021

Journey from darkness to light of Education

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Activities and work undertaken in the last 5-6 months

For decades Turnstone Global is running its non-formal school at Basanti Colony; one of the largest slums in Kolkata, West Bengal for bringing back the light of education among the slum dwellers' children who drop out from their formal school or never attend any school for their poor socio-economic condition. Last 5-6 months due to the corona pandemic we stop providing direct school teaching to honour the corona rule imposed by the Govt of West Bengal and started teaching our 60 beneficiaries online by providing their old smartphones with internet connection. Initially, they were scared having thought that their education will again come to halt due to corona. But our initiative to let their education continue made them and their parents very happy. Through our initiative of providing online education, we can arrest drop out of the children from our teaching program


Challenges faced and next steps

Due to the long-lasting locked down and corona pandemic, many of our school beneficiaries' parents who worked in different unorganized sectors like hawking, van pulling, domestic help, labour, door to door selling lost their jobs. The uncertainty of life due to the severe financial crunch of their parents make our beneficiaries overstressed. They and their parents have been counselled by our professional counselling team as well ensured them monthly ration to wipe out the fear of hunger from their minds. Due to school locked down, the absence of regular physical meetings with the students with our teachers occasionally becomes troublesome for us because we get disconnected from our students due to exhaust their internet package. While it comes to our notice that some students are not attending classes for consecutive few days then we ask our field executives for their physical visit to look out for the reason of their absence and solve the hindrance if anything is found. Next 6 months we want to expand our horizon by establishing few non-formal schools in other slum areas in and around Kolkata.


Stories from the ground

11 yrs Mumpi Biswas has been promoted in class V in our non-formal school at Basanti Colony slum. Her father being a van puller is very much caring towards his family but the longstanding lockdown due to Covid -19 broke his financial backbone and made his family hand to mouth. Having a family of 4 including his ill mother he was almost mentally prepared to send his daughter Mumpi to work as a maid in his neighbourhood housing complex and the meantime he started buzzing local country liquor to combat his frustration of financial crunch which make him very much abusive towards his family members. His sudden change in the character made Mumpi started suffering from fear psychosis which had been alleviated by the intervention of our community counsellor Mr Anirban Chatterjee and the need for daily ration were supplied by Turnstone Global to ensure the food at his home during lockdown which made her father relaxed and came back in his regular life. The multifaceted support of Turnstone Global ultimately saved Mumpi to become a maid.


5 August, 2020

You are smarter than you think

#2

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You are smarter than you think




As we know one fifth of Indian population lives in slum. Apart from poor hygiene, malnutrition, unemployment, the children residing in Indian slum are often denied their Right to Education. They are being forced to involve into child-labour to support their family expenditure. Being a responsible NGO, we run a flexible learning program in the slum of Kolkata, Basanti Colany, and the biggest slum in Kolkata. We started this program in the year 2012 by doing a survey in the slum to identify the children in the age of 5 to 14 who does not go to school. Much to our surprised we have noticed 80 per cent children do not have access to school rather they come under the category of child labour. We identified 254 children who can be benefited from the program. Our counsellor started to convince their parents to send their children to our non-formal school in the afternoon, after finishing their duty as a child labour. Initially only 27 parents got convinced but subsequently number has increased and presently we have 286 children in the non-formal school. Till today we do survey to identify new student each year. Initially we started with 2-hour non-formal schooling, but subsequently when we developed good rapport with parents and they started relying on us mentally, they understood the value of education in life. We started them admitted nearby government school. But our handholding is still their otherwise the chances of dropout is much higher. They come to our non-formal school in the afternoon for 2 hours. Apart from education we teach them drawing and do dance classes with them. We also provide them nutritious food thrice a week to take care of their protein need.



22 July, 2019

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Program Update


Since 2013, Turnstone Global has been running a Non-formal school at Bashanti Colony, a slum adjacent to Bidhan Nagar railway station in the heart of Kolkata. Children within the age group of 4 to 16 are enrolled at this non-formal school. Presently, 276 children are enrolled here. Apart from regular subjects, students also receive lessons on drawing, singing and dancing. A nutritional tiffin is also provided to children. In the last academic year, number of students who completed education at this school have been admitted to regular schools.


Story from the field


Vrihaspati Paik, aged 10, is a student of grade IV at our non-formal school. Vrihaspati’s father Bakul is a van puller ferrying goods in the local market while her mother Shyamoli, works as a domestic aid in the hi-rise apartments of posh Ultadanga area. Together, they somehow manage to secure meals and some basic needs for the family.


Four years back, Vrihaspati was admitted in class I of our non-formal school at the age of 6. However, during the initial years, Vrihaspati’s parents were quite reluctant to send her to school. According to them, education of girl child is not that important. Right from the beginning, Vrihaspati has been consistently good in picking up class lessons. She is also among the toppers of her class. Besides studies, she is very keen in taking dance lessons conducted in the school during weekends.


Vrihaspati’s mother dreams that someday their child will become a young, educated girl and secure an office job instead of knocking from one door to another as a domestic aid like herself. Vrihaspati herself wants to become a teacher like her teacher-didi in the school and educate other girls of the slum area.


What is the expected total number of beneficiaries in this program for FY18-19?276
What is the number of beneficiaries/ benefits provided in this program, Year-To-Date276
Village/City/State where project is locatedKOLKATA, WEST BENGAL
Total Budget for the project for FY18-191000000
Total Expenses for the project YTD910884.92

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