Najo Khan/Lucknow

As a child, Mohammad Arif of Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, wanted to continue his studies in school and come up in life. However, it couldn’t happen due to poverty and he landed himself as a child labourer in a local shop where he was called ‘Chotu’ (The little one) a quintessential name given to young working children by even strangers.

Being addressed as ‘Chotu’ instead of one’s name can leave deep psychological scars in the mind of the child and harm his personality. However, for Arif, it ended up manifesting differently.

Today the 27-year-old Arif Mohammad is working hard to change the lives of ‘Chotus’ children who like him are forced to work due to poverty and have shelved their dreams of life.

Arif has no bitterness about his childhood experiences and circumstances and thinks that he learned a lot while in his role as ‘Chotu.’ He says when people called him ‘Chotu’ he never had any inferiority complex but thought of himself as a worker and developed an attitude toward the dignity of labour.

Growing up with this positive thought, he decided to do something to help others and extended a helping hand to ‘Chottus’ to make them realize their dreams while continuing to earn and learn.

This led to the setting up of The Chhotu Foundation in 2012. Arif says, “I was doing this work even before setting up the NGO for a long time, but setting up the Foundation gave a formal shape to his social venture. Like Chotus, It may be a small NGO, but the impact it has on their lives of children in giving them identity is immense.”

Mohammad Arif with children

Mohammad Arif still considers himself the same Chotu who went to the graphic design shop to learn the skill at an early age. “I would be ordered incessantly Chotu do this work, Chottu does that work, the whole day.”

He said Chotu kept ringing in his mind all day since he constantly received orders to run errands, and did all kinds of jobs at his workplace. He decided to commemorate “Chotu’ through his NGO.

For Arif, life was not always an encounter with insensitive people around. Arif narrates a heartwarming instance of human warmth that he received in his hard days as a child.

While he was in his primary class, his family had no money to pay his school fees. The lady clerk at the school paid for it and he could continue to attend the class. The woman official’s face is still in his mind and her kindness and thoughtfulness became his inspiration. Arif considers her sincere contribution as his inspiration to feel the responsibility and take up the cause of child labourers.

His foundation helps child labourers in continuing with their education, health facilities, and vocational training.

Children working out in the morning

During the two-year Covid-induced lockdown, his foundation delivered rations to many homes and provided work opportunities to many.

His foundation also provided packets of pens and balloons to child beggars for selling it to passersby at the traffic signals to inculcate in them the habit of earning and not begging.

This way he extricated many children from begging and taught them to lead a good life.

He says, “I get a lot of calls. People appreciate my work by calling me even from abroad, but the sad thing is that nothing can be done with appreciation. If people want to do something, then they must help poor children. Even the smallest help plays a big role in taking the NGO forward.”

Arif is a graphic designer. He spends 75 percent of his income on his NGO. 

He says, “Instead of donating to an NGO, people who want to help children must take up the responsibility of imparting education to poor children. I do not want financial help.”

However, he has requested the authorities to allot a small space of land to him for his NGO's building and so far there has been no response to it. 

Teaching children lifeskills: a class by The Chotu foundation

Arif started teaching poor children by taking a four-room flat in Hazratganj of Lucknow where about 150 children used to come to study. "After the advent of Corona, the numbers fell. My financial condition also became weak and I had to vacate this flat.”

In his designing shop, Arif has taught many children the work of designing. Many of his students are doing well. He too has stabilized financially.

Arif has opened a Digi Lab Learning School where he plans to impart training to the working children among others. He plans to reserve seats for Chottus and recycle 25 percent of his income into the foundation.

Mohd. Arif says he has resolved to help about 50,000 children who are still forced to beg or work in shops, and hotels and become Chotus.

Arif says that there are many schemes of the government offering free education to children. He is offering help to any child wanting to avail of this facility and get him admitted to the school.

He firmly believes that “poverty can never come in the way of shaping one’s future.”