Bicycles from Monaco: the Grand Prix Route to Education for Indian Children

Imagine 90 young children, many who were sleeping in the street, or were abused, or had to work slavishly in the fields, who were not clothed well and had few possessions and had little hope for the future.

Now their faces shine with hope. Children in our advanced nations take schooling for granted and some even treat going to school as a chore. For these Indian children, that Monaco Child Care is helping, this new opportunity to go to school is a blessing. They often beam with happiness as if they have won the lottery.

Rajasthan is not Monaco where children can walk to school or get on the bus and where a policeman will stop traffic for a school child to cross the road. Until recently there was not even a route worthy of being called a road for these children to get easily to the school. So in stepped Monaco Child Care with the idea that if the community itself would build a road to the school they would provide the children with bicycles to ride there.

Martine Ackermann, President of Childcare, Monaco and Annie Battaglia, Vice President are just back from their visit of one month to the school where they took the opportunity to oversee the provision of 90 bicycles. Dominique Revelly, the secretary general of the Association Monegasque, Childcare Monaco had successfully found sponsors to acquire the bikes. The timing was propitious as it coincided with the most important festival of the year Diwali. The joy of the festival together with the donation of the bicycles combined to create a celebratory atmosphere and parents flocked to the school to show their thanks and appreciation as each child was shown the bicycle that would help change a heretofore difficult daily trek. Access to education becomes a reality at the point where the children can in practice travel to school.

The community, via the Government of Chitorgarh has built a road to the school, so with these bicycles life is changing for these children. A Grand Prix track to the school to race on with their bicycles is the culmination of this fairy tale. And so that the young girls have a little joy in their lives on a daily basis Martine Ackerman and Annie Battaglia also took the opportunity on their trip to inaugurate a playground in the school with toboggans and swings.

The school had planned to take in 60 of these children originally when it opened in 2013. But the number has already swelled to 90. And these 90 can now get to the school on their bikes and take advantage of the opportunity to have the education that the Association Monegasque has strived to organize for them.

How this hastransformedtheir childhood! Learning to read and write gives them an alternative to working in the fields; some of them had experienced the trauma of being kidnapped for slavery in the past and had to be rescued from brutal overseers in the countryside. And going to school together provides camaraderie. It provides a real experience of childhood; learn, study and play. Ability to read and write means that work in the nearest town opens up for them.

The road takes these children to the school and for them that is equivalent to reaching another planet. Yesterday a diet of slavery, abuse, no childhood, hard labour in the fields.

Today a life with hope for the future.

Monaco Child Care stepped in again in 2017 with a marvellousadditional initiative to broaden the horizons of young minds in Jaipur who previously had never stepped out of the boundaries of their village. A trip to the Taj Mahal.Unimaginable, more unimaginable than being on a trip into Space on Virgin Galactic. The trip will remain imprinted on these young minds forever. One day this kindness will find its way of multiplying. These children will always remember and with that memory comes the desire to help other children in the future – and so the snowball starts rolling and sparks a revolution.

The SNEH girls school supported by Childcare Monaco has welcomed 16 new children aged between 5 and 6 in 2017. Sponsors have made all the difference; people like Silvie Girard that Martine Ackerman says had made such an impact. There are 60 more children on the waiting list and Monaco Childcare is reaching out for more kind people to take an interest in helping these children. They need resources so the school can take them in and teach them. Small donations make an important difference – one young mind is saved with a donation of 149 euros, according to the Monaco Childcare website; the funds keep a child in school for a year.

Child CARE Monaco is always holding events in support of its tireless mission to provide access to education for children. Monaco Child Care needs a little support. One pair of helping hands for one of these children is one big leap for all children in the future – as this initiative fires the imagination. It has fired ours at Hello Monaco.

More information is available by contacting the Association
childcare@monaco.mc
Child CARE Monaco- 41 Avenue de l’Annonciade 98000 Monaco
www.facebook.com/ChildCareMonaco/