"Let's start at the very beginning"

We've grown up looking at this black and white photograph. This photograph where my grandmother (on the right) and my great-grandmother (on the left) are engaged in a conversation. My great-grandmother, or 'moima' as I'd address her, was alive till 1995. I was ten but I do remember how animated the conversations between moima and dida used to be, always. And about ninety percent of those conversations would be about one single topic - Kidyzone. Our lives have centred around this little school for as long as I can remember. But that's another story, a story I'll write later. Today, it's about these two women I grew up idolising.

Moima, Mrs. Prokriti Mukherjee was a child bride, following the norms of those times, the early 1900s. She bore five children, three sons, two daughters. And that could've been her entire introduction, but of course it isn't. Moima started studying when her husband fell seriously ill. He later succumbed to the illness. After having borne five children, and after two of them got married, she passed her matriculation examinations and went on to complete her graduation and teacher's training. She became the District Commissioner of Girls' Guide (Second Calcutta). And of course, she didn't stop there either.  After serving as the head-mistress of Park Institution, she and her eldest daughter, dida, Mrs. Sujata Datta, set to lay the foundation for Kidyzone English Medium School - a school, one of its kind, to prepare children for high school. Moima took inspiration from a school she saw on a trip to Canada to visit her son, and wanted to implement the idea here. 

Starting with six students, over the past 45 years many hundreds of little kiddies have graduated from Kidyzone, enrolled into high schools and gone on to achieve great heights in life. From 1975 to 1995, the mother-daughter duo led the school together. Not something that happens everyday in our country. Even today, when we have family conversations about starting new ventures, I step back and look at it objectively thinking, entrepreneurship is in our blood. In the blood of all of us eight women descendants of moima through her eldest daughter (and most likely in the rest of the family too, but then again, this is a story about Kidyzone).

Since then, my dida has been at the helm of affairs. From leading with gutso, to taking tough decisions to becoming the beloved 'didibhai' for many who have worked for the school and eventually become a part of a huge family. The teachers of this school have been part of our lives, being proud of our individual achievements, scolding us when we were wrong and also taking care of us in distress. Kidyzone, for us, has never been a business venture. It has always been an emotion. We fight over it among ourselves, but whenever there is a problem, we fight for it, together.

Today Kidyzone is troubled, and we are reaching out to everyone for help. If you want to know how, the link is given below. Have a read. Share with your friends and network. Donate, if possible.

Meanwhile, I'll go dig up other stories to share with you soon. The journey of Kidyzone has made a huge difference in many lives, I'll try to share some of those in this series.

Link to fundraiser - www.ketto.org/fundraiser/kidyzone/