Atlanta - June 19, 2006: Robin Raina Foundation (RRF) announced today that it has successfully moved all the Raina Prayas slum dweller school children to a much bigger facility in Bawana itself. The school today provides education to 400 slum dweller’s children along with self help financing program to 600 slum dweller mothers.

Inside view of the school

Library Facility

The new school building consist of 5 Educational classes, one computer/Television Lab, one library Room, one play room, one dining hall, one office, one kitchen, a large play ground in the middle and three bathrooms. The building has been tastefully decorated with children in mind. The new school has been equipped with water filter, refrigerator, television, cable programming with cartoon channel for children, computers and video games etc.

The location of the new school is especially good in terms of local surroundings, water, electricity, safety and cleanliness. The distance of the school from the slums where the children stay with their parents, is about 1.5 miles. Accordingly, a school bus has been arranged to carry the school children from their homes to school and back.

RRF Founder Robin Raina said, “The razing of the school by Govt. bulldozers was in a way a rude awakening to us. The four months between now and then made us alert to the vagaries of slum life and the fact that we needed to build a more permanent concrete facility that was close to the slum. While we kept studies going for all the children in make shift facilities, we kept looking for a long term solution. Today, with the successful move into a much larger and better school facility, we can look back at these four months as a blessing in disguise.”

In February 2006, RRF’s efforts to provide education to the slum dwellers children in Bawana district of Delhi, India had received a temporary setback with its structure for the Raina Prayas School at Bawana being razed to the ground by Government bulldozers, as a part of the establishment’s efforts to demolish structures that do not fit in with their plans of keeping Delhi “clean and green”. The official reason given was that the Delhi Government had decided to expand the two lane Bawana road into a much wider road, and the school structure had to be demolished to make way for it.

Robin Raina Foundation – Raina Prayas project,
2075 Lake Shore Landing,
Alpharetta, GA 30005

About Raina Prayas

In 2004, Robin Raina Foundation and Prayas, a Delhi based highly decorated NGO in India decided to set up the Raina Prayas joint venture initiative in Bawana, for the sole purpose of promoting literacy among the children living in the slums of Bawana and providing hope and a future to these kids and their families. The goal of Raina Prayas is not only to help educate children in the slums, provide food, clothing and medical facilities to these children but also to motivate other organizations to establish similar programs throughout the city, across the state, and all around the nation.