The pandemic has affected one and all. Some perhaps more than others. This note has its central focus as the children of Dharavi. With many children from India’s biggest slum losing a parent to Covid, or a breadwinner’s income to the pandemic - education is a resultant casualty and children are being denied access to knowledge. Education that is crucial for these kids and their only hope for a decent future, one that can help them break the cycle of poverty. The Government has stepped in and most government and municipal schools; both English and Hindi medium, are offering online schooling - since normal school is an unlikely possibility for this academic session too. But with the financial conditions of people living in Dharavi, they cannot attend these classes as they do not own a gadget to facilitate the same. Even if there is one smartphone in the house, the parent needs to take the same for work. The NCERT data states that this is the situation with more than 27% of school going students from underprivileged backgrounds.

CFTI has stepped in to bridge this ‘digital need gap’ by offering a tablet, equipped with basic skills software, earphones and connectivity resources to these children. These tablets can help the child stay in school and continue their education. In many cases a single gadget is shared by all children in the family thus touching more than one life. Apart from the primary benefit of education – this has other parallel benefits like elevating depression from being disconnected with their friends and also preventing these vulnerable children from indulging in negative activities. In phase one last year, CFTI distributed about 750 tabs and the results (and sheer incredible success of the intervention) have inspired them to double their target and they hope to distribute 1500 or more tabs this academic session under their ‘SCHOOL ON TAB” initiative. CFTI has pledged that “No students should be refrained from online classes only because of non-availability of gadgets”. It’s a right of every student to take equal education irrespective of economic backgrounds. Their representatives have thus mapped 1500 such students those need tablets to avail the facility of online classes without any obstacles.

• Refraining the underprivileged students from not being able to studying online
• Reduced dropout rates due to non-availability of gadget for online lectures
• Saving the donors' time and efforts of mapping and identifying the actual needy
• Supporting to build an educated nation and mission of digital India through the project