Bhubaneswar NGO provides unprivileged kids smartphones to ensure education during lockdown

A Bhubaneswar-based NGO 'Ashayen' is helping out 220 unprivileged children by providing 67 smartphones during the Covid pandemic to ensure they don't discontinue their studies, as schools that were shut during the lockdown continue their classes online.

Speaking to ANI, Manaswini Parida, Volunteer, and teacher Ashayen said, "Ashayen is a young volunteer's forum committed to the most vulnerable section of children and working tirelessly for the last seven years in the city of Bhubaneswar. Now they have been expanded to five centers in Bhubaneswar covering 220 street children in direct intervention and many more in different ways."

"Our major thrust is to provide basic education and life skill management learning to these unorganized masses for building rationality and decision-making capacity for their life," she added.

According to Parida, the centre was created by converting a bar by the NGO and the children last year during the pandemic.

"About 150 to 200 (Munda tribe) families are staying in a slum area near Damana square in the capital city and are migrant from various districts of Odisha," Parida said.

Ashayen had provided 15 nos of smartphones for the study of the children from Class 1 to 10 batch-wise . A total of 50 students from different classes is in the slum area. And take back phone after study over.

Ashayen has 5 centers where 220 children are studying and smartphones have been provided to 67 of them.

One of the children name Madhab of class 10 from Munda Basti said, "We have faced a lot of problems during studies but sir helps us much, they have provided smartphone to us. We have made a group and we use one smartphone. Only when we are reading sir provided us the phone and then take back. We want one phone for every student. There is me and my mother in our family."

( With inputs from ANI )

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