IRIN Films: Bus stop education | WPN World People News

Millions of children from low-income communities in Delhi, India, do not have access to formal education. Many families prefer their children to work and earn an income rather than attend school.

A child looks out of a window from a bus that serves as a school in India

"Bus schools", old school buses converted into mobile classrooms, are giving Delhi's poorest children the chance to attend lessons, many for
the first time.

"It's bad when we are told that we are an illiterate group and that we don't know anything," says Nishi, one of the children enrolled in the programme.

The distinctive buses are fully equipped with a variety of learning materials, including computers, television, books, DVDs and soft toys. They travel to selected points in the city, providing classes and basic life skills to an estimated 300 children for two hours daily.

The aim of the bus schools is to eventually enrol the children in formal education.

Bus Schools is IRIN's latest film in the Kids in the City series. These short films tell the stories of children surviving in different cities around the world.

Other films in the series include: Breaking Rocks, a story about children working in construction in Sierra Leone; Surviving Rape, which looks at South Africa's rape crisis; Home Alone, featuring four AIDS orphans living in Uganda's capital, Kampala; The Weigh Scale, about a 14-year-old boy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, who weighs people for a living, and The Dump Site, which tells the story of children scavenging in Nairobi's Dandora rubbish tip.

Source: IRIN