Sonu is my Favourite Teacher

Usha: What is your favourite colour?
- Purple.
Usha: Mine too. Your favourite day?
- Monday.
Usha: Yes! The same for me. Your favourite ‘dress’?
- Hmmm...I don’t know. What about you?
Usha: Jeans and a top. Just like you have now.
- Oh, thank you. And who is your favourite teacher?
Usha: Sonu Christensen!

Usha, a 12 years old Indian girl, is just one of around 80 street children in Delhi who would point at Sonu Christensen as her favourite teacher. And most probably their first and only teacher. There she is – a calm and peaceful lady dressed in a green sari, with her black hair neatly arranged on her back, sitting on the ground in the middle at the small but decent classroom surrounded by a bunch of kids – you might not even notice her when entering the small room. Curious faces, raised hands, loud voices, deep and inquisitive eyes of children aged from 5 to 18 are Sonu’s everyday life. Teaching them is Sonu’s passion. She is a teacher at the school she has opened herself. A school for street children.

Sonu is Nepalese and she moved to India after getting married to an Indian. She used to work at a private school, but after giving birth to her own child and being asked by her husband what she would like to do next, Sonu knew she didn’t want to go back to her old school. She also knew she was not going to sit at home like many other women in India do. Sonu recalled a memory from the days when she was a school girl: many street kids curiously peering through the windows and wondering what the other kids in those nice school uniforms were doing, what it was like to be at a school, to study. ‘I would have let them in’, Sonu thought at that time. ‘But I couldn’t, as it wasn’t my school.’ Sonu saved this picture in her mind and hoped to open her own school for street children. One day...

That day came, and Sonu has now been living her dream for six years. With the support from her husband and financial help from a private donor she has managed to arrange two rooms for her passion to flourish. Once you enter the first floor, you see a room with a clean floor where children are sitting with their notebooks on their laps. They are listening to Sonu as she teaches science, math, Hindi, English. She wants the kids to be able to compete with those who study in private schools. She wants them to continue their education when they graduate from her school. She wants them to be able to pass the exams just like the other kids.

Especially Sonu wants to empower the girls. Women empowerment is her other passion along with educating street children. And very often these two challenges are closely related. The children study till noon, then they go home, but Sonu’s school starts living the afternoon life. And that is reserved for women. She empowers women and encourages them to take up leadership and initiative. She has bought several sewing machines and once the women come to Sonu’s afternoon workshops they carry out different handicraft tasks, share problems they have at home (for example, husbands who are alcoholics) and encourage each other to be strong, to strive for their lives and dreams. 

Sonu also makes sure her work is sustainable. She wants her older students who come from small villages and have graduated from her school to go back to their village and educate kids there. She also gives them responsibilities in her classes and asks them to assist in teaching younger kids. 

It’s evening when Sonu leaves her school to go home to her family. Her husband and son are waiting for her in the cramped and modest two bedroom apartment they have. It’s smaller than Sonu’s school. It has a tiny kitchen and two rooms with almost no furniture, just mattresses to fit themselves and foreign guests they often have as Sonu wants them to experience Indian hospitality. She doesn’t want luxury. As simple as possible, she said to her husband when they moved in. Her fulfilled dream gives her space, luxury and richness. It gives her energy for the next morning when the 12 years old Usha and many other street children wake up to go to school. Because now they have a school!