PUNJAB: In the past eight years, businessman-turned-lawyer Hari Om Jindal (55) from Ludhiana in Punjab has taught over 500 slum children, who are largely garbage and cow dung collectors.
As a young boy, Jindal witnessed his family lose everything a fire accident destroyed his father’s business. He somehow completed his graduation, by doing an array of odd jobs alongside to sustain. This included being an office assistant, a hotel receptionist, salesman in private companies, to even working at shipping firms.
While working in these various industries, he encountered the plight of street children. “As someone who has personally experienced apathy and discrimination while dealing with people in public offices and in social circles, I realised that our society does not care for the needs of people who are struggling.
Often, instead of being helped they are ridiculed. I decided to move from international shipping trade to study law with the purpose of finding an answer to the question – why can’t a poor child get the same facilities and amenities available to a child born into privilege? The question drove me to write an entire book that will be out soon,” informs Jindal.
By the time he completed his law degree in 2012, he had also set up an organisation to rehabilitate underprivileged children that primarily involved teaching them. “It was not easy to motivate them to study because they were used to collecting waste. The other problem I faced was how to make learning interesting. So, I worked out a new vocabulary: ‘A’ stands for ‘administration’, ‘B’ for ‘Ballot Box’, ‘C’ for the ‘Constitution’, ‘D’for ‘Democracy’, ‘E’ for ‘Election’ and so on....” informs Jindal. This study format became an instant hit with the kids, who were intrigued enough to learn more.
At present, the teaching project is spread over five slums in Ludhiana, catering to 150 children. “Last year, over a dozen of our students passed Class 5. We even opened a computer centre and children are taught in batches.” In 2017, Jindal was invited to a global conference at Yale University, USA, to deliver a talk on distressed children.
Curriculum aside, Jindal successfully persuaded a few parents from marrying off daughters early. “Many of the girls want to study further and become lawyers. Now seeing them, even their mothers have taken up studying,” says Jindal. Director General (Railways), Punjab Police Sanjeev Kalra only has words of praise for Jindal, and lauds his efforts in a sentence, “Our society needs many more people like Jindal.”
Hard life, early on
As a young boy, Jindal witnessed his family lose everything a fire accident destroyed his father’s business. He somehow completed his graduation, by doing an array of odd jobs alongside to sustain.