What does it take to lift a child out of the slum?
Murshida, resident of Topsia canalside squatter camp is 18 years old. She has just completed her final school exams. Her father is a tuktuk driver who earns about £2.50 (Rs200) a day. Most girls in this community marry at 12 or 13 years old but Murshida and Tiljala SHED's staff persuaded her parents to let her continue her education. Murshida has attended Tiljala SHED's classes since she was small and aspires now to become a teacher. She shows every sign of accomplishing her ambition. So how does it worK? How does a child born in a shelter beside a railway line in Kolkata escape the cycle of poverty? With illiterate parents, mother a rag picker, father a rickshaw wallah and often too drunk to work, both repeating the cycle of 2 or 3 generations since the family escaped starvation as landless rural poor by moving to the big city for a better life? How can an anxious mother with 6 or 8 mouths to feed every day even think beyond the immediate daily i...