Mangaluru: Forty-five children from a slum in Mannagudde will go into the exams confident and well prepared, thanks to a few graduate students of St Aloysius College.

For the degree students, it began as part of a college project where they had to invest 20 hours for a social cause. But, they decided to spend four months teaching slum kids at the Gurudhwara slum community. The project began mid-November and continued till February.

The concept was chalked out by the Centre for Social Concern (CSC), an extension activity of the college.

“Every degree student has to participate in SAHAYA and post-graduate students in an outreach programme as part of their academic work. SAHAYA involves 20 hours of work.

The CSC decided to use this time to reach out to slum kids. The BSc and BA students took keen interest in it,” said CS coordinator K Gopika.

“Students visited the slums every alternate day and spent at least two hours a day with kids there. The objective was to create interest in education, get the basics right and also create awareness among parents. We believe this has worked,” Gopika said.

Apart from teaching basic maths, science and English, the students also provided the kids stationery.

Gopika said 150 families stay in the slum. “They are migrants from North Karnataka districts such as Vijayapura, Bagalkote and Raichur and most are daily wage workers. Their children don’t go to school. Also, they’d miss classes for weeks when they travelled back home with their parents.

Our students helped them revise the syllabi before the exam,” she said, adding that the parents’ attitude to schooling, too, has improved.

Teachers at the government school in Mannagudde, where most of these kids study, say they are better focused and the attitude of parents has changed for the better.