Media Coverage

Times of India
Priest finds true calling in footpath university
Feb. 25, 2007

A small cluttered room near noisy railway tracks is an unlikely place to find a Christian priest. But that's the place where Father Trevor Miranda is often to be found. Seated in a chawl room- surrounded by 30 children all from neighbouring slums in Kalva, a distant north-central suburb- Miranda cuts an avuncular figure.

"Silence," orders Chhaya Kesarkar, in charge of the crammed centre, drawing the crowded class's attention to what Miranda is saying. "We go where nobody else will probably go. We take education to the doorsteps of the poor," the 52-year-old Miranda, adjusting his thick glasses, says.

Priests usually confine themselves to leading the faithful to the righteous path, through rituals of prayers ordained by the almighty. But Miranda is different. Found of REAP (Reach Education Action Programme), a mass literacy movement in Mumbai working from the hutments dotting railway tracks from Churchgate to Virar and CST to Kalyan, Miranda spreads light in some of the darkest areas. He has created hundreds of small informal schools inside slums and a network of willing teachers. Illiterate adults attend these centres along with children. And Miranda renders his services absolutely free. He initially toyed with several ideas about how to educate the poor.

"But, if I had set up yet another high school or a college, it would have not made much difference," Miranda says.

So he started his first educational centre in a corridor at St Xavier's College in 1987. "I would hunt for children near Churchgate, CST and Azad Maidan and lure them to my class," he says. They were initially apprehensive, perhaps worried that this was yet another 'uncle' out to exploit them. But, soon, the disadvantaged groups found a caring father in the man who walked with a limp, result of a polio attack in his childhood. "It has never deterred me from what I wanted to do," he says.

He often comes across grownup men, who tell him: "Father Uncle, I was in your class. And, now, my children are in school." Nothing satisfies him more than the fact that many deprived children, he once taught, are now sending their kids to proper schools. Miranda reaches out to 8,000 students in Mumbai through 400 small educational centres in the slums. Social work, especially by priests, can raise suspicion; there are some who use charity to evangelise. But the moment one meets Miranda, such fears melt away. "The only Christian in my institution is me," he says, showing a register. "Religion is something we do not discuss here," educator Kesarkar, an inspirational character for many poor students, says.

Having grown up in a slum, she knows what change education can bring in the life of the deprived. "We spend months bringing women out of their veil," she says. "Some women refused to pronounce their husbands' names as that was against their tradition. We told them they were not inferior to their husbands. Now things are changing. Many women have joined our adult literacy classes," she adds. She proudly says that her second daughter, Prajakta, idolizes Mother Teresa and has excelled at school essay writing competitions.

Apart from educating the slum children, Miranda's REAP is empowering women too. After a poor village in Kalva went without drinking water and toilets for years, the slum's women were galvanized under the REAP banner and they gheraoed the local corporator's house. Now taps in the area seldom go dry and public toilets are no longer promises. "We want the poor to use education as a means to achieve social change. We run training courses for teachers who are drawn from slums," Miranda, who spends considerable time seeking funds from corporates and individuals, says. "We tell them: 'Don't believe us. Do your own survey and then help." Help comes in cash and kind (notebooks, textbooks, pens and pencils and some even sponsor uniform).

Tow years ago, as he got more involved in his movement, Miranda moved from the plush St. Xavier Academy's residence in south Mumbai to a modest house in Kalva. He has sparked off a silent movement that is sweeping through many slums. He says: "It's a university run from footpaths. And I am its vice-chancellor."