ABOUT

Mrs.Kamal Capoor started The Happy School with 5 children in her little front lawn. The idea was to give the under privileged children in her neighbourhood, the children of maid of servants, construction workers, dhobis, sweepers, rickshaw-pullers etc., happy memories of their childhood. The school moved three times –from the lawn to the street corner to the green belt-as the number of children kept increasing.

1998

Starting with five labourer’s children, she washed and bathed them, gave them clothes and food, sat them in her lawn and started teaching. Then people of the neighbourhood , passing up and down saw and volunteered to bring food, clothes, slates, boards and as the children started increasing the volunteers also started increasing.

1998

Growth

We soon moved to the head of the road where the children grew to 50 and then to 100, with volunteers also growing in number and donors giving books, stationery, uniforms etc. Soon a donor gave us tables and benches which we put out in the open, along with a godrej almirah where we kept the books, a music system, a harmonium etc. We even had our Annual Day program out on the road!

2000

Developing the school

By this time traffic had increased on the road where we were, so DLF moved us to the green belt. Here the school started taking a semi-formal shape and by the end of a year we had about 200 children.

2002

Opening the building

Finally, in 2007, we moved to our present building. It was more than we had ever dreamed of, or could have hoped for! Since this was a government building, we had to follow the Haryana government syllabus and abide by the rules of the Government. But we were given a free hand by the government teacher in charge and our volunteers did a wonderful job. But to keep to the school hours, it was not enough to have volunteers only. We had to have paid teachers who would be there for 4-5 hours everyday. Luckily, we managed to get some local teachers from Sikanderpur, who were willing to learn and teach at next to nothing salaries.

2007

The Happy School today

About six years ago, we managed to get some trained teachers who wanted to work with these children and were willing to do it for a token salary. They came in and changed the face of The Happy School and made it into a regular public school type of school where we now have about 400 children. We have regular examinations, report cards, PTA meetings etc. But most important, besides studies we have extra-curricular activities like Kathak dance, karate, yoga, painting, computers, all sports like football, cricket, basketball, table-tennis, tennis, badminton Children have taken part in inter-school competitions and won laurels for the school. We also have a proper medical card for each child where a record of their immunizations, dental records, eye records etc. are kept.

Present