Door Step School is a registered non-governmental organization that has been working to promote the cause of education for the underprivileged children in Mumbai and Pune since 1988. We currently reach out to almost 8,000 children through our community-based classes and through supportive activities in schools run by the Municipal Corporation in both cities.

Our first School-On-Wheels was inaugurated in 1998. It proved to be a very effective as a strategy of reaching out to street children. Since then such groups of children have been covered at 7 locations in the ward. Of the 400 children who have studied on this School On Wheels to date, 160 have been mainstreamed and are attending municipal schools in the vicinity.

Now, as the time has come to replace the first School On Wheels on completion of 8 years on the road, the Consulate General of Japan has once again come forward to support us for this, as the initial venture has been encouraging.

The inauguration ceremony was held on August 26, 2006 at the Y.B. Chavan Centre, General J. Bhosale Marg, Mumbai 400 021 at 10.30 a.m. Mr. Akira Iwanade, the Chief Consul represented the Consulate of Japan. In his address to the audience he stated that the Consulate of Japan was very pleased to support this venture where the most underserved of children were reached with no regard to their caste or creed. He informed the audience that the government of Japan had designed the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Project keeping in mind support projects that reached the people who need it most.

Mr Murli Deora, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India was the chief guest at the inauguration ceremony. He has been a long time friend of the organization and stated in his address that he would always happy to be of help to Door Step School and wished the organization all the strength they needed to carry on the much needed work.

The information about the organization was shared with the audience by alumni members of Door Step School in an interactive fashion adding their own experiences to the account they narrated. The guests even got to enjoy a demonstration of a non formal education class on the new bus.

In early 2006, one more School On Wheels was introduced in Ward ” B” to take education to the large stretch of pavement dwellers in the Wadi Bunder area along the arterial P. D’Mello Road. On seeing the success of the first School on Wheels, Rabo India Finance Pvt. Ltd. came forward to support us in extending this service by donating a bus for the purpose. At present 4 classes are conducted on this School On Wheels, with approximately 20 children attending each class.

Bina Sheth Laskari, Director