The aim of the project is to eradicate begging by uplifting the life of the children of the migrant community who beg outside VIT university. We try to achieve this by facilitating Mid Day Meals, engaging them through various educational activities and raising awareness around the VIT community to come together and act on this issue. The PEP (Parmar Education Program) is a project focused on a community of 45 people who have migrated from MarwarJunction, Rajasthan to Vellore, Tamil Nadu in search of opportunities to earn a livelihood. The adult males in this community earn meager daily wages of rupees 200-250, while women in the community spend their day collecting wood, preparing food and taking care of their children. Like most of the other nomadic or ‘banjara’ communities in our country, these people live on barren lands and do not have access to electricity or cleandrinking water. In order to improve their standard of living, children are forced into child labor. This has a negative impact on their mental capacities as they become resistant toward the idea of education.

Through discussions and surveys, it was understood that uplifting the children through basic education and by providing them mid-daymeals during the day was essential to eradicate the societal ill of begging.

According to data available on national databases, 42.5% of Indian children are malnourished and 12.9%of the global population of children. 11 million children are homeless in India, and homelessness is attributed to the societal issue of begging.

The ultimate goal of the project is to eradicate the social issue of begging. GGB does this by providing children with mid-day meals, introducing them to quality hygiene and sanitation standards, and involving them in educational activities. Through PEP, we have realised that our goals cannot be achieved without the support of the community and therefore, use this project to urge the VIT community to offer support and ask for their active involvement. As part of the project, we started a helpline for people in the community to reach out to in case they saw children begging on streets.

We firmly believe that various stakeholders like the VIT Community, restaurant owners, GGB members can, together, through a collaborative approach, end this problem.

Tanzeal is a project in which underprivileged children are taught by members of the renowned National Service Scheme, at Delhi College of Arts and Commerce.The aim of this project is to provide a platform for holistic development to underprivileged children by extending regular education and conducting various activities and fun-filled events. GGB members and NSS volunteers work together to spread happiness, as well as education.

Through its Covid19 Support Initiative , GGB’s aim is to assist those who have been disproportionately affected as a result of the pandemic. We have expanded our efforts to focus on the third sustainable development goal: Good Health and Wellbeing in order to accomplish this. Being based in New Delhi, we have shifted our approach to better address the systemic challenges that the Covid Crisis has brought to light.

As seen during the second wave, the lack of resources to treat covid patients deeply affected the country, particularly the country’s lowest socioeconomic strata. To prevent this from occurring in the predicted third wave, we have been proactively preparing Covid Prep Kits for those in need. We have also come forward to help the families who were severely affected during the second wave in India.

GGB aligned its focus towards the 5th Sustainable Development Goal: Gender Equality. Our LGBTQA project aims to raise awareness among the millennial population about the LGBTQA+ community, their rights, history, the challenges faced and the milestones reached. Its aim is to disseminate the message that there is a need for an inclusive and diversified space for the community.

Special Training Centres are an initiative taken by Tamil Nadu government to curb child labour around the state and ensure quality education for all children- upholding said SDGs. Its objective is to identify areas around the state where children are subjected to child labour or whose parents are minimum wage workers and set up training centers to teach these children subjects Math, Social Science, History and Tamil. This was not a solution but instead, a stopgap measure of about 1-2 years, after which these children will be put into regular schools. The GGB team visited two of the three Special Training Centres in Vellore, each with 25 students ranging from 7 to 14 years of age (per training center). These children were also provided with a mid-day meal in the course of their school day. Under the guidance of the honorable Collector’s Office of Vellore we helped teachers and children in any way we could. GGB sent volunteer teachers to the center 4 times every week to teach English as it proved to be major hurdle for the students and teachers alike. We gradually increased the number of hours and bring in creative teaching methods so as to contribute more towards the holistic development of these children.

At present, we have discontinued the project due to lack of resources.