Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

Sabuj Pathshala (‘green school’), a Kolkata-based voluntary organisation, has established three lower primary (class I-IV) schools for underprivileged children of Muslim and tribal communities in the Malda, Jalpaiguri and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal.

This NGO was promoted in 2006 by Kolkata-based journalists Milan Dutta and Syamantak Ghosh, together with software engineer Arijit Das and Prof. Tapasya Ghosh, in Suhanitola village, Malda district. Since then, a growing number of like-minded friends — Dr. Satyaki Halder; financial adviser Bibhas Dev; IT professionals Sulagna Chakraborty and Dwaipayan Sengupta; school teacher Deboleena Chakraborty; journalists Suchandra Ghatak and Abahan Dutta; life coach Chiradipta Sengupta and Dipanwita Karmakar, an M.Phil student — have joined this philanthropic initiative and are pitching in with supervising the operations of the school.  

Newspeg. A third Sabuj Pathshala was established in Murshidabad last September despite the raging Coronavirus pandemic, to bridge the learning gaps of 20 underprivileged children enrolled in local government schools.

History. In 2005, recurrent floods in Malda district caused massive damage to life and property. While reporting on this disaster for Anandabazar and Star Ananda news publications, Dutta and Ghosh felt it incumbent upon them to provide assistance to little children whose lives were totally disrupted by the floods.

“With the help of Kedar Mondal, a local activist, we built the first Sabuj Pathshala in Suhanitola, Malda, 15 years ago. But it was difficult to convince the local people, the majority of them orthodox Muslims, to send their children, especially girls, to school. It took many public awareness campaigns to persuade parents to agree to our even building the school,” recalls Ghosh, a Presidency College alum, who started his career as a journalist with Star Ananda and currently works in the Delhi bureau of Deutsche Welle, a German government-funded media company.

Direct talk. “The common curriculum of Sabuj Pathshala schools has been specially designed to encourage creativity, critical thinking and life skills development. It’s a balanced mix of academics and poetry, theatre, and art and crafts. People from diverse walks of life including professors, doctors, and theatre personalities often visit our three schools to widen the horizons of children. After they complete class IV, we facilitate their admission into local government schools while continuing to provide learning support,” says Milan Dutta, a former journalist with Anandabazar Patrika.

Future plans. Currently, the annual expenditure of Rs.1.5 lakh is borne by the 13-member team with sporadic contributions from friends. The team is planning to promote the fourth Sabuj Pathshala school in Tipligheri, Sagar Island, 100 km south of Kolkata. “Our objective is to take Sabuj Pathshalas to the most backward villages of West Bengal, and also pioneer a model school with active community participation and ownership,” says Ghosh.

Wind beneath your wings!

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