“The society gives us so much; we should give something in return...”
This is what we thought, here at IMT Nagpur. We are “KOSHISH…let’s make a better future”, a team of 12 people, all second year student managers at IMT Nagpur, who go to a nearby village ‘Dorli’ every Sunday to teach schoolchildren there.
It all started with…
The thought that we should do something for Dorli village was shaping up in the minds of a few people simultaneously. I discussed it with Jaspreet, Mitesh and Khushboo and together with Nitin and Neha, we decided to go to Dorli and talk to the Sarpanch about what we can do. Neha, Jaspreet and Mitesh were associated with some or other NGO in Delhi and we were benefited by their experiences.
We went to the village, met the Sarpanch, Mrs. Sunanda Rokade and asked her what all problems they are facing there. She discussed at length about the condition of schools, the problems children are facing with English and Mathematics, the condition of medical care, the problems that farmers are facing, 10th-12th passed younger generation deprived of jobs due to lack of computer training and many more... We told her that we can help with one of the problems, to begin with. The reason was that we are all students of post graduate management program, which is quite a demanding course; hence availability of time was a major constraint for us.
Brainstorming sessions…
After coming back, we held 2-3 meetings where we weighed our options. Everybody had a distinct opinion about what is to be done and how it should be done. After a lot many debates, discussions and brainstorming we came to a consensus that we can teach the schoolchildren. There was a problem of language because the schools have Marathi as the medium of instruction and I was the only one speaking Marathi. All the same, we decided to try it out.
The first experience with children…
We met the Sarpanch again, this time with specific ideas. We decided to go on a Sunday afternoon in November (it was 2nd Sunday of November 2007), meet the children and gauge their level of understanding. When we actually reached there, nobody had turned up! We called Mrs. Sunanda and requested her to gather as many children as possible. Soon the crowd gathered and there were almost 50 children of different age groups sitting in the panchayat courtyard in front of us. We introduced ourselves and I started telling them a story in Marathi. The children were shy initially, but soon after listening to the story they started opening up. Then we asked their names and chatted with them.
Getting acquainted…
It took next two sessions to get to know each other. Till that time we also held some meetings and decided our approach. Meantime, Chetan, Ashish, Deepak, Divya, Sheetal and Arunima had joined hands with us. We divided children in four groups, standard-wise: 1st to 3rd, 4th to 6th, 7th-8th and 9th-10th. We assigned 3 members to each group. Since I and Chetan were the only two Marathi-speaking people, we decided that we will help out whenever needed. We decided to teach them English, Mathematics and some tricks and tips for self-study.
Work that is going on…
We go to Dorli every Sunday afternoon and spend 3-4 hours. Each and every one of us teaches some group or other. The initial language problem has eased out by now; because children are able to understand Hindi, and the KOSHISH members have picked up some words/ phrases in Marathi. I teach mathematics to those children who have only Marathi as the medium of instruction.
Along with the textbook study, we also tell them some tips on how to study and improve their reading and writing style. The children wanted to learn to speak English, hence while teaching we emphasize on correct pronunciations and usage of words. We also tell them some short stories about people who achieved their dreams in difficult situations. Besides, we also tell them how to maintain hygiene in day to day activities. The younger kids like to play with us, hence we conduct some group activity/game at the end of the day and the winner is appreciated by everyone with a lot of claps and cheers.
In these sessions, the children and we have become fond of each other. When any one of us is unable to go there, children always ask for that ‘tai’ (didi) or ‘dada’ (bhaiya). If they get to know that anybody is ill, one of them calls up mid-week to ask how is he/she.
Now we have resumed our sessions after coming back from our summer internships. Three of our students have passed 10th standard board exams with moderately good marks. We called them to help us with the younger kids, and they consented. Now we can proudly say that some of out students have become teachers, and they want to help the younger ones with the studies.
Tokens of appreciation…
When we started, we used to sit on ground in the open space in front of Panchayat office; but come February and we were greeted by a surprise! The Panchayat office was opened for us, some plastic chairs and drinking water was made available. The Sarpanch herself visits every time and asks how the children are doing. We also met a primary school teacher who appreciated us. These small tokens of appreciation and recognition mean a lot to us. These are the things that motivate us further to continue the work in spite of our hectic schedule and time constraints.
Future plans…
Now that we are in our second year, we are planning to take along some of our juniors so that the initiative taken by us does not die down. For self-sustainability of this work, we have involved the 10th passed students in our activities. We are planning to conduct a public speaking and personality development workshop in the primary school, as per the demand of their teachers. We also want to conduct English speaking classes for 10th-12th passed youngsters. We are looking forward to arrange a medical camp in the village with the help of some doctors from Nagpur. We are also planning to cater to the farmers’ problems; but we would require some funding for that purpose.
So far we have been successful in doing what we wanted to do and we wish to do a lot more in future. KOSHISH believes in hardwork, sincerity and willingness to bring smiles on the villagers’ faces. We believe in the saying “where there is the will, there is a way”. We are certainly treading on the right path, in the right direction…
