19-Year-Old School Drop-out Indrasingh Auji Resumes His Education Again

19-year-old Indrasingh is native to Nepal. His parents migrated from Nepal to Mumbai seeking livelihood opportunities. Their family resides in the Govandi slums of Mumbai and are facing a serious financial crisis. Their hand-to-mouth situation led to frustrations that started causing violence at home.

Indrasingh’s father works as a daily wage labourer. They were finding it difficult to make both ends meet. For days they lived without having two meals in a day. To add to their misery, his father became an alcoholic.

The financial conditions forced Indrasingh to drop out of school and he had to work in order to add to the family income. To avoid the violence at home, Indrasingh’s elder brother moved to Pune and started working there. Indrasingh also went to Pune and started studying there. This was only for a brief period of time as Indrasingh decided to come back to Mumbai as he could not live without his parents.

Indrasingh is our champion who recently went to Bangalore to present his innovative work for his community to the panellists of Asoka Youth Venture. But he faced a lot of challenges to reach here. When Indrasingh got back from Pune, he got addicted to drugs and tobacco because of anti-social peers. He had no direction in life back then.

Bal Raksha Bharat identified Indrasingh and encouraged him to attend the youth group meetings. He started actively participating in these youth group meetings and he felt a sense of being wanted in that group because he had a voice and his opinions were heard in the youth group meetings. He is now Ashoka Youth Venturer.

Indrasingh says, “Now I have some purpose in life, to do something for my community people. It makes me feel good. I am thinking of continuing my education and at the same time I will help my family financially”.