A 50 year old organization working for the uplift of most deprived children and women who live in dark and dingy slums of south Kolkata without even the basic amenities for survival.
PARIVARIKEE is a social welfare organization for women and children established in 1967 with the mission to uplift the lives of the poorest sections of society by providing them with an avenue of education and social awareness. Just having celebrated its golden jubilee in 2017, PARIVARIKEE has travelled a long way in achieving its mission. In the last 50 years, PARIVARIKEE has facilitated thousands of boys and girls to step on to the education pathway and make something of their lives, away from the gloom and deprivation they see around them in slums. It is gratifying to note that many of the students of PARIVARIKEE have grown into doctors, engineers, artistes and teachers. In fact, PARIVARIKEE is an institution / school for those indigent children to whom the doors of many other institutions would have remained closed for want of fees, books etc which they cannot afford.
How it all started
PARIVARIKEE was founded by an eminent social worker and Gandhian, the late Sushila Singhi and a group of like-minded social reformers and philanthropists who understood the deprivation of the poor in terms of awareness and education. Starting in a small garage with just 40 children who had to be introduced and lured to the concept of education and a school. Today, PARIVARIKEE has grown into an institution of enormous dimensions.It is now housed in its own 4-storeyed building in Lake Gardens where the students come from the adjoining slum areas of Gobindopur, Lake Gardens, Tollygunge, Jodhpur Park and other adjacent areas. Girls and boys who once used to wander about idly and venture into wasteful fields have found an optimistic and constructive alternative in PARIVARIKEE.
The enitre spirit that Parivarikee stands for has been wonderfully translated into a huge mural by eminent artist belonging to the Bengal school of art, Ganesh Haloi, that adorns the exterior of Parivarikee Bhavan since the 1970s.
Present
As of today, our institution has on its rolls, more than 200 children from slum areas ranging from the age of 2+ to 20+. (Till a few years ago, i.e., the eviction of families living along the railway tracks in Gobindapur near Lake Gardens in south Kolkata by the Indian Railways, the number of students was around 700.)
With the mission to unravel the path of education and awareness towards its benefits in realizing life to its fullest, Parivarikee has always endeavoured to lead these children to a world of unexplored opportunities.
If children are to have a voice, they need access to information that is both timely and understandable to their particular intellectual stage of development. Therefore, Parivarikee’s concept of the educational process aims to provide the child with the information to comprehend and participate in his or her own environment and be harbingers of social change.
Parivarikee is a social welfare society registered under the West Bengal Societies’ Registration Act 1961.We are not an NGO in the current sense of the term. We are not funded by any foreign agencies or government grants. Whatever we have done in the last five decades is with the encouragement and support of benevolent individuals and trusts.
Rajni Jhunjhunwala
President
Pratibha Agrawal
Vice President
Alka Didwania
Vice President
Susmita Gupta
Hony. Secretary
Shishir Gupta
Hony. Treasurer
Tapati Singhi
Asst. Secretary
Riju Chamaria
Asst. Secretary
Neetu Chitlangia
Asst. Secretary
Forming the backbone of Parivarikee’s efforts in its day to day interaction with the children and in introducing the real transition in their lives, are the teachers and staff of Parivarikee whose keen involvement, untiring services and selfless dedication are a rarity in today’s world. Parivarikee’s dream of giving a better tomorrow to the not-so-fortunate children in society could not have shaped up without their endeavors.
