International · Youth & Education · Portrait

Anushka, or the hope of a better life

3 November 2025Photos and text: Alexandra de Dives26 images

01 / 26 · 3 November 2025Alexandra de Dives / Collectif DR

In India, more than 8 million children under the age of 6 live in some 50,000 slums across the country. In one of the many slums of Dehradun, in northern India, hundreds of families live crammed together in miserable conditions. Housing is substandard, running water is scarce and heavily polluted, and electricity is often cut off. Many children are not lucky enough to go to school because their parents cannot afford it and send them to beg in the street.

Anushka, 6, lives with her aunt and seven other family members in a single room of eight square meters. Despite these very precarious conditions, the little girl now has a unique opportunity: she is part of the program set up by the NGO “Project Why”. This organization selects children from the most vulnerable families and supports them until they come of age. It provides them with a uniform, schooling at a semi-private school, one hot, balanced meal a day and tutoring in a small center at the entrance to the slum. The center also offers sewing and computer classes. The goal: to support these children until they finish their education, to give them a different future. Last June, Project Why celebrated a major victory: one of its students was admitted to the local university, a first for the NGO. For Anushka, it is a chance, and a hope.

India, Uttarakhand, March 2025, by Alexandra de Dives – Full story (text and photos) on request

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