Monorama Bairagi (left) is enrolled in ninth grade at Calcutta Emmanuel School. Her mother (right) also receives literacy education through the school.

Bringing the Best Education to India’s Slums

Calcutta Emmanuel School offers India’s highest standard of schooling to the city’s poorest children

Janki Bairagi sat next to her 17-year-old daughter, looking at each of the books she had brought home from school that day. The English letters were unfamiliar, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if Monorama’s textbooks had been in Hindi or Bengali, India’s most widely used languages.

Janki couldn’t read or write. Her family had refused to allow female children to attend school. So her daughter’s ability to speak English was an accomplishment Janki never imagined possible.

Monorama is enrolled at Calcutta Emmanuel School, one of the country’s acclaimed English-language institutions. In India, only the wealthiest families can afford such schools. But Janki and her husband live in a poor neighborhood of makeshift houses, scrunched between two tall apartment buildings. Monorama’s father is a driver, and Janki stays at home with the children.

“If I was literate, I could help my husband earn money,” Janki said. “But I cannot work outside the home.”

Calcutta Emmanuel School is the only English school in the city that strives to provide the highest level of education to children of the lowest-income families. For almost 20 years, Samaritan’s Purse has financially supported this educational program that shares a message of hope in Jesus Christ with children and their parents.

The school was started informally by Vijayan and Premila Pavamani in 1979. Vijayan, who was the region’s director of Youth for Christ at that time, began carving out space in a tiny office to teach children basic reading and math skills.

Today, hundreds of children ages 4 to 17 are enrolled. The school’s holistic approach provides students with top-notch instruction while also promoting the arts, providing Christian education, and offering courses for illiterate parents like Janki.

“Calcutta Emmanuel School is not just a school; it’s a social program that makes sure homes are OK,” school administrator Kris Mallick said. “There is not a project like this in all of India.”

Parents are a vital part of the school’s success, said director Premila Pavamani, who meets with mothers and fathers to stress the importance of their role in a child’s future.

“These parents are so poor,” she said. “Some of them are house and domestic staff, and some of them are unskilled laborers. They have no self-esteem. They think we are doing them a favor by helping their children.”

During the year’s first mandatory meeting, Premila tells parents: “We want first of all to train our children to respect you, and to love you, and to appreciate you, and obey you…Your role cannot be minimized in any way.”

The school emphasizes respect for parents as part of its curriculum based on Biblical principles. Teachers and administrators have seen dramatic behavior changes in many of the students. Christian instruction is presented in love, never attacking other faiths. Staff hopes that the changes parents see in their children will point them toward the Gospel.

“We are telling them the truth about Jesus,” Bible teacher Malobika Baroi said. “We pray that God will change their hearts, and God will help them to understand that He is the only way.”

WAYS YOU CAN HELP

PRAY:

• For the school’s staff, who show the love and compassion of Christ to these children on a daily basis.
• That the education these children receive at Calcutta Emmanuel School will help lift them out of poverty.
• That many of the students would come to know the Good News of Jesus Christ and His unique plan for their lives.