Monday 30 July 2012

Last Few Days




As I write out letters to each of the seniors to keep with them as a memory of my visit, it is slowly dawning on me that I have two days left with the children.
Whenever I was feeling distressed or alien in such a different culture, it was always the thought of going to the project and seeing the seniors that made me feel much better, and made any negative experience seem minuscule.
My re-occurring Delhi-belly throughout the trip has never stopped me from going to the project, because I did not want to miss any opportunity to bond with the children. On my occasional days off where Vijay attended the project (without me), the children always asked where I was, and why I was not there, and why they were not pre-informed about this. In such a short space of time, a mutual, unbreakable bond has been created with myself and Parichay's senior children that can never be broken.
I intend to make sure the children enjoy their final few days with me, I have arranged a party, and a possible visit to the magnificent Akshardham Temple on the condition that all senior children will be able to attend.

Friday 27 July 2012

Rangeen! (Colourful!)


The past week has shown me a glimpse of Indian life and culture, through the festival of Raksha Bandhan. Raksha Bandhan will fall this year on 2nd August, and celebrates the Brother-Sister relationship. In this festival, sisters tie colourful threads (known as Rakhis) on the wrists of their male relatives, in exchange for gifts. As with all Indian festivals, the festival is not without plenty of colour, as seen from the various Rakhis being sold by Parichay at various corporate houses. On Friday we returned to STMicroelectronics to sell Rakhis and handicraft items made at the unit, and this Tuesday we visited SCS. Today we returned to Tribal Fusion with the children, and whilst the children had an IT lesson, me and Vijay were selling various items. Tomorrow we shall set up another stall at a corporate house in Gurgaon.
From these various stalls I have attended I have learned how the diversity of festivals in India can provide Parichay with unique opportunities to obtain funding, and how crucial the support of various corporate houses are in helping fund the project.

Friday 13 July 2012

Khushboo!


Khushboo is a loan word in Hindi from Persian. It is composed of two words - khush, meaning 'happy' and boo meaning 'smell'. The term is best translated as 'fragrance', and that's exactly what filled the air yesterday at STMicroelectronics, an international company which has around 3000 employees alone in it's Noida office. Me, Vijay and Kailash (from my Senior Class) went there to set up one of the regular spice stalls Parichay holds there.
We arrived there at 9.30am and set up our stall near the canteen, composed of three long tables - and laid out the array of spices lovingly grinded, blended and packed by the women of Parichay's spices unit.
On offer were the basic spices used in Indian cuisine - cumin seeds and powder, turmeric, coriander (cilantro) powder, garam masala (the most common blended spice mix in Indian cooking), dried mango powder, chilli powder, fennel seeds etc. In addition to this, there were some unique spice blends - one for vegetables and potato, one for chickpeas, paneer masala (spice blend for cottage cheese curry) and so on. In addition to this there were some sweet items available, including mango sweets, and also bulgar wheat, paratha mixes (Indian flat bread), and herbal henna/mehndi (for hair).
Having already tried chickpeas using Parichay's spice blend, I can testify to the quality, flavour and freshness in Parichay's spice mixes, so it was not surprising to me that many of the customers at STMicroelectronics were repeat buyers! In addition to this, Vijay remarked that everytime Parichay sets up a spice stall there, the number of customers increase - a testimony to the hard work of both Vijay and the ladies in the spices unit at Parichay.
The day was very busy, but passed so quick! I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I was involved in all activities of the stall - set up, replenishing stock, taking cash, packing products. After we had closed for business, I also purchased some spices for myself.
Since the ladies are working on profit only, the increase in sales means a greater income, and so it is a reminder to us all - that hard work pays off.
Since my experience, I am eagerly anticipating the future stall at STMelectronics for the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, where we will be selling handmade Rakhi bracelets amongst other items.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Science, Maths, Urdu...


My past few days have been filled with variety at Parichay. First I gave two Science lessons, the first being around food - where different kinds of food come from, how different plants grow, the ingredients needed to prepare various dishes and their origins, the difference between herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.
The second lesson then focussed on different kinds of fabric - synthetic and natural, and how various kinds of substances become fabric - like the process of ginning with cotton balls then spinning in making cotton yarn, and then the process of weaving to make fabric. To demonstrate the process of weaving I used strips of paper and asked the seniors to demonstrate this to me. I am finding it useful to periodically re-cap various questions within a session so the knowledge becomes cemented in the children's brains, then the day after, re-asking those questions to assure that these are in the children's long term memory.

Then, we moved on to Mathematics. This involved looking at numbers and looking at how to arrange a group of random numbers in ascending and descending order. I then decided to use my own knowledge to help the children with their multiplications. I presented to them a Japanese method of working out multiplications which involves constructing a grid.

I also enquired from some of the students if they would like to learn the Urdu script. In their everyday spoken forms, the languages (Hindi and Urdu) differ very slightly, but both share different scripts - where Hindi uses the Sanskrit derived Devanagri, Urdu uses a modified Arabic script in it's Nastal'iq form (a style of writing), which is used in Iran today. The children were very keen on the idea, and so we commenced classes today. Despite being taught by a foreigner who has limited knowledge of spoken Hindi, and despite learning for the first time letters of a very difficult script, the vast majority of the group absorbed the rules of the script and new letters very easily. The children have an unmatchable thirst for knowledge, and were all keen to have their names written down in Urdu (and also Gujarati and Punjabi, too!). I am looking forward to future Urdu classes and I am really enjoying sharing my personal knowledge with the children, as my Urdu reading and writing was self taught.

Friday 6 July 2012

Ab To Thanda Paani Milega... Now They Will Have Cold Water


Having experienced the hottest July in Delhi in the last seven years I know exactly how it feels to have a bottle of water quickly descrease in temperature, and the lack of satisfaction one gets from water that is not ice cold.
In fact, when this happens, it is almost like one has not taken any water at all.
So imagine the delight on the faces of the children of Parichay when a brand new fridge, donated by Tribal Fusion, was delivered today!
The children can now enjoy chilled water to keep them refereshed while studying at Parichay. This will help with their mental alertness and have a positive impact on their well-being and education.
Thank you Tribal Fusion!



Tuesday 3 July 2012

Life with Parichay - A Glimpse


This week my schedule is conducting three classes a day. The first is an inimate session of just three ladies and one girl. The aim of the class is to help them to better develop their comprehension of English - one lady from Kolkata already teaches in the Special Children's Unit at Parichay, and the others are studying elsewhere in government schools.
The aim of the class is to familiarise them with the different ways in which English is spoken (accents, regional differences) and increase their confidence in using the language. This will allow them to interact with much more ease in corporate and professional environments (take for example, one young lady who aspires to be a journalist) where in they will be required to interact with people from various countries. So far, we have discussed food, film and differences between our societies/cultures (and all found a common ground). In the next session, I have requested them to all bring a topic which they would like to discuss.

The second session is with one of the junior classes. This is a Hindi class, in which we are currently reading 'Sooraj ka Roomaal' (The Sun's Handkerchief). Currently we have two pages left - and as we progress I am assisting the children in writing the story in to their notebooks and reading aloud. The aim of this is to firstly focus on their handwriting and reading ability, and once the story is complete, their comprehension. Various questions will be asked about the story to which the children will have to answer.

The third session is with the senior class, in English. So far, we have completed two short stories, and whilst reading the stories I advised the children to underline any unknown words so that their vocabulary can be improved - and thus their comprehension. After this stage, I conducted spelling tests along with their Hindi meanings in order to help cement these new words in to the Children's vocabulary.
Furthermore, I reward the child with the highest mark with a prize in order to motivate them. After this, I read through the story once more and conduct a quiz of comprehension, in which there are around five questions. The child with the most correct wins a big prize, and any child with at least one correct answer gets a small prize.

Enclosed below are some photos to give a glimpse of life with Parichay:-


Parichay's Main Project Site


Parichay's Spices Unit - One has to only walk past this door to smell a wonderful array of aromas!


Special Children's Class


Kailash, Moni and Raju from the Senior Class


Me Giving a Hindi Lesson to a Junior Class


Senior Class Hard at Work

Sunday 1 July 2012

An Eventful Few Days


Wednesday to Friday was packed with new experiences from which I learnt a lot. Aside from Parichay, I also visited two other NGOs.

On Wednesday I conducted my first classes at Parichay. My first class was to a younger class where we covered Hindi, and looked at the meanings of various Hindi verbs (smile, drink, eat) in Hindi and English, and also involved asking the children to translate simple sentences between the two languages. The second class was for the oldest group in Parichay, most of whom I had already met when we went to Tribal Fusion last week.
The two hour lesson involved reading a story, and looking at the meaning of new words. Towards the end I conducted an English spelling and Hindi meaning test for the class, and out of a maximum possible score of 34, a young, bright girl (called Moni) achieved 33 - well done Moni!
The class ended with handshakes from a couple of the young boys and comments such as 'acchi lesson Sir' (good lesson Sir). The experience was so engaging that we did not realise the lesson had run 15 minutes over! The experience felt very natural and normal for me despite being my first time teaching, and I am looking forward to my coming classes tomorrow. The children were extremely well behaved and seemed to have a thirst for learning - and this is because the children have realised the value of education in uplifting them from their previous circumstances (such as child labour, for example).

On Thursday Vijay took me to MTU (Mission to the Unreached) Vidhya Kendra. The NGO has a school of around 200, and is based in New Ashok Nagar. As we entered the children were beginning their day by singing 'We Shall Overcome' which had set the tone for the day. Vijay was there to conduct assessments on some selected children to assess their mental ability (to check for any learning difficulties, for example).
While Vijay conducted some other parts of the test (relating to memory, for example), I was helping with tests relating to order (such as placing story cards in the correct order, and duplicating patterns using matchsticks). I learned about the importance of testing these children as young as possible so that they can be given the appropriate extra support where it is required, in order to ensure maximum possible educational attainment.

On Friday we returned back to MTU Vidhya Kendra to conduct some further tests with the children there, and then we returned back to Vidhya Niketan in Bilaspur. There, I watched Vijay give guidance to the ladies on how to set up their groups (establishing a name, keeping log book records, establishing regular meetings and keeping records of money given in to the group). Two groups were formed, and I had seen with my own eyes the will power of those ladies to empower themselves through their own means as a community.