By Nadine Kalinauskas, Good News, N
Rajesh Kumar Sharma, 40, offers a free education to New Delhi’s slum children
under a metro bridge.
Over 30 local Indian children have been attending his open-air,
dirt-floor school since it opened three years ago, NBC News reports.
Five days a week, for two hours a day, Sharma leaves his post at his
general store—his brother fills in for him—to teach underprivileged children
otherwise without access to schooling.
The father of three quit college due to financial limitations, and
didn’t want other children to encounter the same situation. So he persuaded
local labourers, rickshaw-pullers and farm hands to allow their children to
attend his school and give them greater opportunities at overcoming their
poverty.
Sharma teaches children at other locations, too. The Indian Express
reports that he started teaching the basics to 140 students, prepping them for
admission to government schools. Seventy of them are now in those government
schools.
“They still come here everyday. I manage to keep them ahead of the
school curriculum,” Sharma told the paper, adding that he allows children too
young for classes to sit in on the teaching.
