If God had amends to make, Bakshi, a former professor in French at JNU, had a debt to pay. Daughter of Ram Goburdhun, former Indian ambassador to Turkey, Morocco, China and Vietnam among others and wife of a senior Air India officer, she felt the “need to give back to society” some of the benefits of her privileged life. The result was Project Why, which started with “spoken English” classes for 50 children.

Empowering starts with education, hence Project Why’s main thrust is on getting children from the area (or the “community” as Bakshi calls it) admitted to government school and keeping them there. It supplements the education in public schools with lessons at its own centres, sometimes in little rooms located inside the bylanes of slums in Okhla, Sanjay Colony and Nehru camp. “We have more than 500 children and many teachers are from the slums,” says Rani, who works with Project Why.

The results speak for themselves—in 2005, one of the students Farzana (who had failed twice in class VII before she entered Project Why) cleared the Delhi Boards with 85 per cent. Today, she is studying information technology.

“It did not end with education. I should have known that, especially in a country like India where so many things are intertwined. Working with children also required working with their parents and the community at large. Especially when it came to special children whom nobody seemed to want,” says Bakshi. The Project Why team, which includes Bakshi’s daughter Shamika, has an onerous task cut out for them—fighting to have families accept, love and respect their disabled children. “It takes a lot of effort just to convince parents that the child is special, that they need special handling. Many parents are just plain relieved that we take the children off their hands everyday,” says Shamika. Rinky, a 20-year-old with a hearing impairment, was trained as a beautician and now works at a parlour.

Along the way, the organisation has also arranged for funds for surgeries and treatments of several children. “It is our motto to never turn anybody away. When God gives us a problem, we turn to him for the answers,” she says. In November 2007, Project Why began a centre for women at Khadar and already has two inmates with troubled pasts. “We would ideally want a centre where women can take shelter from their troubles. We want to provide them with all kind of help in negotiating with their families, legal advice and counselling,” says Bakshi.