HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Ann Mills, the Founder of Room to Learn, first travelled to India having volunteered to work in the Baptist Hospital in Bangalore and later moved to Assam helping at the Christian Guwahati Hospital. During her visits to India, many families had become her friends, and her concern and love for these people grew. Finally, after retiring from the NHS, her burning desire was to help those Indians and Nepalese who were relegated to the bottom of their society by birth – known as the ‘untouchables’. How could they escape from the chains that bound them? Ann decided that if she could provide a Nursery School and teachers, the little Dalit children could have a ‘head-start’ on the learning ladder. this would give them a fairer chance of success. Room to Learn was started on August 9th 2015
THE START.
Walking along a hillside on the outskirts of Kalimpong, Ann met the gaze of a little girl, who looked at her with an inquisitive, confronting expression. Somehow there was a challenge in that exchange of eyes. She stood outside her home, although to call it a home is questionable. What was wrong was that she was living in a prosperous area. The here and now reality contrast was shocking. But more important, what about the future prospects of this little girl?
Ann with a translator, met the mother, baby sister, and learned that Father worked in a chicken factory, stripping out organs by hand. A job only done by the lowest Castes in Indian society. The income allows only a day by day existence. The little girl Manisha can start Government Primary School when old enough. But, and it’s a big BUT, surveys show that fifty percent of children from the lowest caste, leave Primary School well before completion. (Economist Aug 2016)