Sparsha Charitable Trust

Sparsha Charitable Trust was founded by Sarika Desai. She completed her graduation in Child Development and Care from S.N.D.T. College. She worked wit Read moreh NASEOH, Sulbha School for mentally challenged children in the child-care space. While spending time with those innocent children, she realized that a child faces many problems as a part of society. She found this to be very disturbing and she wanted to change the situation for all children in our country. After completing her graduation, she opted for professional social work as her career. She took the admission for Masters in Social Work in Nirmala Niketan College of Social work. In the first year, she got an opportunity to understand our education system, worked closely with them, and learnt about the difficulties faced by underprivileged children in Mumbai. She has experience working with organizations like Prerna and Don Bosco. In 2004, she decided to launch the Sanskar project aimed at integrated child development with a primary focus on education and child rights in Mumbai under Sparsha Charitable Trust. Sparsha began its intervention by adopting 5 locations in Wadala on construction sites and slum pockets. While interacting with the parents and children she understood that these parents also care about the future of their children but lack the resources and opportunities to help their child grow. Sparsha works with parents who are illiterate or semi-literate migrant workers, daily wage workers, street hawkers, etc. Due to financial compulsions, parents force their children to join the labour force and ultimately these children remain out of the formal education system. Sparsha took the challenge of changing the mindset of parents through continuous intervention with these parents and their children.  So far Sparsha has impacted around 25000 children from 12000 families in 17 centers across different slum pockets in 3 Municipal wards in Mumbai. Sparsha works with 22 BMC schools to ensure enrollment of drop out children in the formal education system. Our aim in near future is to spread its wings and widen its horizon to provide a helping hand to more and more disadvantaged children.  At Sparsha Charitable Trust, we believe education is the most vital asset of an individual. Access to quality education, however, is not evenly distributed. In underprivileged areas, school drop-out rates remain high, girls tend to skip school altogether, and a very high number of students fail to acquire basic secondary education. This occurs due to various reasons but mainly it is due to the lack of awareness in parents and financial restraints due to the ensuing poverty. We work with children, parents, and government schools to eliminate these imbalances. We aim to spread awareness through conducting meetings among the youth, adults, and parents. Our aim is to motivate parents to send their children to school and give them an opportunity to develop themselves to their fullest potential. Our programs emphasize education that develops a child’s social skills and life skills. With this, every child is prepared for their future and can positively embrace the opportunities they are offered in society and life.