Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday kick-started the “Desh
ke Mentor” programme launched in the national capital to ensure that
children get proper guidance and support to become confident and
productive individuals when they grow up. The pilot project started
for this purpose has shown encouraging results, he pointed out.

Kejriwal said children needed basically two kinds of support when in
their teens and in classes between nine and 10. They require emotional
support so that they do not have depressive thoughts because of
various kinds of pressures. The second major support they require is
in the form of a value system and what they can do in their life or
what options are available to them.

“Here comes the role of mentors. In some cases, we have an elder
brother or sister who serves as a mentor for his/her younger brothers
or sisters. We are looking for such people who can play the role of a
mentor for school children. You can be anywhere in the country, but
you can serve as a mentor. Anyone wishing to play such a role can
adopt at least one child to serve as his or her mentor. You don’t have
to come to Delhi. You can play this role through an app we have
developed,” the Chief Minister suggested.

He said this was a major nation building task. This is how the country
can have mentally healthy, confident, productive and patriotic
nationals.

“If you put one brick on the nation building wall you have made a
major contribution to the task of nation building. After all, nations
are made of human beings, not of bricks and mortars”, he pointed out.

Kejriwal informed that unusual things are taking place in the field of
education in Delhi. “The government schools in the national capital
are doing so well that 2,70,000 students from private schools this
year shifted to government schools. This was never heard of earlier.
Previously, there used to be 16,00,000 students in government schools,
but now their number has gone up to 18,70,000,” he said and
congratulated teachers, parents and others for this achievement.

He said Delhi’s happiness and entrepreneurial classes were also being
appreciated by one and all. “When former US President Donald Trump
came to India, his wife saw how  the happiness class was being
conducted. She was immensely impressed by the happiness curriculum
introduced in Delhi’s schools,” the Chief Minister added.