Colaba's Dhobi Ghat, a Glimpse of How Rouble Nagi Converted India's Slums into Colourful Classrooms

People, across the slums, would often wonder if Rouble Nagi was so free to be spending the entire day at slums, while some would use other harsh words, and shut the doors in her face. But it has been 26 years now.

On a usual morning now, Nagi assigns tasks to children from the surrounding slums to draw and write the names of fruits and animals, and they follow in a small yet colourful classroom tucked in the slums of Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai's Colaba area.

A narrow lane, which keeps buzzing, leads to this three-room centre, which falls after the concrete spaces, where the washerfolk clean clothes, all while the colourful shanties become visible right from the beginning of the lane.

But there is a different kind of buzz here at the learning centre, whose walls are painted with messages about cleanliness, and the children keep busy colouring in their notebooks. They are busy with what Nagi calls essential, an art-based learning.

Recently, Rouble Nagi received the 'Global Teacher Prize', awarded in collaboration with the Varkey Foundation and UNESCO to recognise the efforts of teachers for their exceptional contributions. According to the Global Teacher Prize website, Nagi's non-profit organisation, Rouble Nagi Art Foundation (RNAF), has established more than 800 learning centres across India in over 100 underserved communities and villages.

The award also includes a $1 million sum, which Nagi has announced she will dedicate to opening more learning centres. "In one of the villages bordering the Line of Control (LOC), when I asked who was not visiting a school, everyone raised their hands," Nagi says, who visited Kashmir, also her birthplace, to announce the opening of the digital-enabled classrooms in villages situated along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara district, including Amrui, Jabri and Tithwal in the first phase of the programme.

"I hope the next time I visit, everyone is in the school there," Nagi says, as she talks, directing the children at this Dhobi Ghat's centre to keep completing the tasks. At the centre, along with Nagi, however, there are teachers for the children, and the school runs from morning to evening in shifts. "I come for the 12:30 p.m. shift here from Malad," says Shashikala J. Prasad in Hindi, who has been working at the centre since it opened in 2016.

While Shashikala has been teaching at the very same location before the RNAF established its learning centre, she says that art-based learning is better for students. "Children get excited to learn through drawings," she adds. This is not to say that the centre does not have its own problems. Showing the water tank, the teacher says, "There is only one tank for drinking water and the washroom." However, she says that it is manageable.

A childhood question and the quest

Nagi has come a long way. "Initially, the families would not listen to me or meet me. Some said that I should not visit them again," she says, adding that people would also tell her that such social work should be taken up during the latter part of life.

Being an army kid, and having left Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 4-5, Nagi remembers travelling with with father to the remote areas of the country. While she kept visiting her grandparents in Kashmir, her life became a journey between states like Punjab, Karnataka, and West Bengal to the south. She lived in places where the electricity and water supplies were irregular.

All this while, she saw children out of school as she went to the far-flung areas. Once, she asked her father why the kids of her age were not in school, if she was. "You are too young for this; you will understand when you grow older," her father said, as per Nagi.

Later, even though her father wanted her to be a doctor or join the army, Nagi told him how she felt connected to the children and would do something about them. Married at the age of 19, and after coming to Mumbai in 1999, this wish took a turning point at one of her art workshops when she met a child who had never seen a pencil. "It made me wonder how I would feel connected to children and what was the point of it if I was not actively doing something for them," she recounts.

'Art breaks barriers'

Since then, Nagi and her team, through the foundation, have been emphasising art-based learning. "If I had just gone to the underprivileged communities to inquire whether or not their children studied, they would have never accepted me. Art breaks the barriers."

While it took some time, Nagi managed to motivate many such out-of-school children to be part of the centres of what she now calls formal schools. "Through art-based education, music, poetry, and reading storybooks, visual learning becomes a textbook for them," she says, adding, "We hold hands till 12th grade, and there are many who, then, become interested in taking further studies."

Moreover, she also worked on painting murals in these slums on issues ranging from hygiene to environmental awareness, which she says connected her with the slum residents and children. Even the lane leading to the Dhobi Ghat's centre has murals and speaks of these subjects.

Nagi also knows the importance of teachers for the children, as recounting on of her teachers in South India, she says, "Till 4th grade, I studied in Himdi, and did not understand English when we moved to the south. I also failed in one. Had it not been for a teacher there who supported me, I would have also thrown tantrums for not attending school because of the difficulties," she said, stressing the importance of teachers and educators worldwide. 

The educator, who now shares the lineage for the Global Teacher Prize with other teachers from across the world, also includes Hanan Al Hroub, a Palestinian teacher from the West Bank, who was given the prize in 2016 for her work with traumatised children as she developed a "We Play and Learn" approach focusing on non-violence and trust. "...this platform has given new identities to all the teachers in the world, and to those who are deserving," Nagi says, in a conversation regarding the same.

While she believes that government programmes have been instrumental in raising awareness of the need for education, Nagi says the gaps remain. "There are many out of school and college, there is no denying that," she says, adding that such gaps are being filled by organisations like hers, which, thus, becomes important. 

To ensure the centres run smoothly, Nagi aims to involve the slum communities in it. "These are run by people of the village and the slums," she says. Nagi shares examples of how people who would take sarcastic jibes at her initiatives, like cleanliness drives, have now become ambassadors of the cause in their villages. "It has been a consistent and collective effort."

Along with 10-13 centres in Kashmir, Nagi will also open 6 centres in rural areas of Maharashtra. Talking on a Friday morning, she shares she is travelling to Navi Mumbai the next day, Rajasthan, Telangana, and New Delhi in the near future for also incorporate AI-based classrooms to aid in teaching.

Back at Colaba's Dhobi Ghat centre, Nagi checks the spelling mistakes herself, as she says, "I am sitting here, and I can see what mistakes they (kids) are making. AI cannot see that. But his human-technology coordination can go hand-in-hand with other assistance."

As we talk, one batch is ready to leave for nearby homes. "My house is very close," a student says, sitting silently, having completed the task. His brother, the 5-year-old Krishna Kanaujiya, unlike him, is quite talkative and says, "engineer,"  when asked what he wishes to become. His classmate sitting beside him is very firm when she says that she wants to be a lawyer.