From Landfill Waste to Laptops: Empowering Waste Picker Children

Modern day life relies on literacy, but not all children have equal access. Meet the children of waste pickers, living off our discards.

Delhi’s 70-acre Bhalswa landfill is one of the three oversaturated dumpsites of the city. While we send our waste here, waste pickers are forced to live next to it, picking from our remains to feed their families.

CHILDREN ALSO PICK TRASH

Waste pickers are one of the most essential, yet stigmatized persons in our society - their children, often forgotten about. Even if waste pickers’ children get into a school, uneducated themselves, they are unable to help their children to study, often forcing them to drop out and join their families in waste picking. This means these children suffer from abuse and health hazards, and lack the resources and skills needed to move away from intergenerational waste picking.

For the past 8 years, Chintan has been working with the children of Bhalswa landfill, breaking the cycle of child labor in recycling through education. Through its No Child in Trash Programme, Chintan has established learning centers across 18 sites across Delhi NCR. These centers offer non-formal education support, enabling these children to keep pace and thrive at their formal schools.

Vivek’s digitally-skilled future

Vivek, the son of waste pickers at Bhalswa, is a student of 8th grade. The family lives off Rs. 12,000 every month. This 14 year old wants to become an engineer, but to do that, he needs to begin building on his digital skills. Through Chintan’s free digital literacy classes, within just three months, Vivek has scored 85% in Term III, a significant upgrade from the 66% he received in Term I and II. “Earlier, I had access to a computer only once a week at school. It was very hard to understand anything. But now after attending regular classes at the digital labs, my weakness has become one of my strongest subjects.”

Chintan’s digital literacy program provides access to digital skills essential for today’s technology-driven workplace, to equip children like Vivek for a future away from landfills.

400 more dreams to reality

Join us in supporting the education of 400 more children from low-income backgrounds, to ensure that they do not slip back into waste picking. 

With your contribution, we can nurture more Vivek's.

Where will your money go?

Your support could help prevent the vicious cycle of child labour in Bhalswa. It will help procure the following to set up a digital lab in Bhalswa:

1.  30 laptops

2.  Internet connection for the laptops

3.  Infrastructure for learning centres

4.  Premise rental

5.  2 security alarms

6.  Teachers

7.  Supervisor