AID Gurgaon New Project - Unnati

AID Gurgaon NEw Project - Unnati

After successful running of AID Gurgaon Mobile Creches, now with Nishank's continuous efforts we have a new project in our group. Nishank named it as Unnati. The project has been started from scratch and volunteers will be working without the support from any other NGOs. I believe the volunteers now are experienced enough to make this project a success.

Here is how Nishank describes his views:


Hi all,

Here is a brief update on the new project to be initiated by AID Gurgaon. There is a slum area which is located 5 mins drive from Evalueserve’s office (near Rajeev Chowk, close to Delhi-Jaipur highway). The slum area is called “Ret-Mandi” by the people there. On Saturday, January 20, 2007 while returning from Mobile Creches, Sachin, Munish, Sumit and I went for the survey of the area. The basti consists of more than 50 families with around 150-200 children.





The basti is on a barren land where people have put patch-like shelters. The basti is around 6-7 years old and some of the people keep coming and going if they are not able to get any work. Most of the families there hail from Rajasthan. The people there are basically daily wage earners surviving on hand to mouth existence. Their occupations vary from working as mason, labourers, making ropes, selling things on thelas etc.




The children there have no access to education. Some of the children there have been to school earlier, but had to leave their studies in between. There we met a boy “Shambhu” who has studied till class 5. His father was asking if Shambhu can be admitted in some school. We talked to few more people there and their responses were really good. They told that hey would help in every possible way if we start some teaching activity there. Even the children there want to study. The parents said that since there is no school nearby they are not able to send them school. Moreover affordability is an issue for them as sending to school means expenses in fees, uniforms, stationeries etc., that too when they have no regular source of income. Finally we returned from there and told that we would come the next day too.




Yesterday Sachin and I went to talk with more people there. We gave Shambhu a Hindi Storybook, a notebook and a pen. He even read aloud a paragraph from the storybook. Seeing him other children also told that they want notebooks. Even some of the adults there told that they want to learn reading and writing. There are children of all age groups. They were busy playing with their customized toys. Few of the adults there told that teaching these children is next to impossible task as these children won’t listen to us. We told that we will try our best and asked them to be a bit strict when we will start classes thereJ !!! We also took few photos of the children and the place there. The children were very excited to get themselves photographed.



We are planning to start classes there on Saturdays and Sundays. (On Saturday from 3-5 p.m. and on Sundays from 2-5 p.m.) Here we should strive for overall community development here rather than only the education of children. In this slum area no NGO or Govt. body visits and there is a lot of scope and challenge to do something constructive here. We will have to start things from scratch here. One of the possible names for this project can be “Unnati” as these people really need some development.

CSR in AID Gurgaon

With efforts of the volunteers finally we were able to successfuly form a fully functional CSR team in the first company Evalueserve. Wouldn't you like to know why i mentioned it as fully functional?

Here are the few points lined up:

• Successful completion of winter clothes drive
• Successful execution of teaching program of the house boys within the company by CSR volunteers
• Success of bottoms-up approach in forming a CSR team
  
• Involving CSR volunteers in other AID Gurgaon projects such as Mobile Creches
  
• Growing volunteers every month
• Donation drive
  
• and lots more

Now the plan is to form similar CSR teams in other companies in Gurgaon. A list of companies have been identified and bottoms-up approach will be used to form the core of the CSR team.

Keep checking this post for the updates....

Kids Ralley...

Mobile Creches celebrated 'Bal Adhikar Diwas'

This saturday was somewhat different. It was late morning and we all reached Mobile Creches with the usual plan of teaching kids. To our suprise what we all saw was something different!!! All the kids instead of being inside school, were standing outside with posters and banners in their hand. It seemed as if some army is ready to attack.



I was surprized but then someone told us that there is a awareness rally organized today. All the kids were supposed to form a group and walk in their community. Kids were carrying posters in their hands with different messages written on it.

This was their fight for education.

Whoops... then what to think, I also took a poster in my hand and became part of the rally.





I could imagine the rallies in 1940s for the fight for freedom. This was very much the same for these kids.

However, this was fun!! fun for them and fun for all the volunteers.

We all were moving in the small lanes of the community (designed like jalebi, we were moving round and round from one lane to the other) with shouting aloud the messages that were written on the posters. Everyone from the community were looking us (which we all wanted) and trying to read what was written on posters.

Though there was no teaching that day, we were not able to teach something to kids, but i learnt one thing from the ralley "We don't value things that we get with ease, the value of those things are only known to those who are deprived of them"

Bhaiyya aa Gaye :)

A wave of enthusiasm ran through the kids as we reached the Mobile creche - our lethargic bodies too got charged the moment a loud "bhaiyaa aa gaye" fell on our ears. This seems to have become a routine now (no wonder we are excited to meet our little friends every saturday).

This time Shashank got a jigsaw puzzle (animal pictures in every jigsaw) with him that attracted a lot of kids [chorus: bhaiyya main bhi khelunga]. We thought of fostering team work in the kids and divided the ones that were interested into three teams. Each team was given a separate jigsaw puzzle to solve. The desire of being the first one to solve was so strong that they focussed on our lip movement and waited for the "Start" signal. Some of them of-course did not wait :D.


Initially we thought that this exercise would be difficult for the kids. However they proved us wrong. One of the team was extremely quick at knitting the pieces together. I could see the glitter in their eyes everytime they were able to piece an animal together. They quickly finished their jigsaw and I began telling them the animal names. There was haathi, saanp, cheetah, sher and another one whose name I was unable to recall. Without much hope I asked if any one of them knew it's name. No one replied. I let it go by.

While some of the kids were busy with the jigsaw I looked around to see what others were up to. One of the groups that was being taught by Priyanka was making a lot of noise. I went closer to see that Priyanka had drawn a human figure (it looked more like a ghost..he he- don't tell Priyanka ;)) and marked the various body parts. She was explaining where nose, hair, teeth etc. fit in. She asked me if I could take a quiz since she had finished teaching. I agreed and quizzed the kids by placing my finger on the body parts. They answered quickly confirming once again that they are quick learners. Priyanka had already taught the kids Twinkle twinkle little star (with actions) so I tried my luck with teaching "Johnny Johhnny Yes Papa". Frankly I had forgotten the verse when Priyanka remined me the lyrics. My actions combined with my verse's hindi translation ("jonny beta tumhe cheeni khaee hai- nahi papa" ;) ) made the kids laugh and gag. I am hoping that they would remember the song (and the hilarious actions :D) the next time I pay them a visit.

Priyanka then taught the kids how to write their names in English, which they picked up quickly.


Meanwhile it was Munish's turn to teach the younger kids and face the heat :D. It really is not easy teaching kids alphabets however he did a good job.


Ashwini (aka Dhoni - as suggested by the Mobile Creche teachers :D) taught another group extremely deligently.


Rajesh too taught kids in his very unique and energetic "samajh aa raha hai na bhaisahab" andaaz.


As we were about to leave , one of the kids came to me and said "Bhaiyya wo nevla tha". Quickly the animal whose name I had forgotten flashed before my eyes. I cursed myself for not being able to relate the figure to the word. I looked at the kid and mumured "Hats off buddy - way to go!".

Get up everyone its time for Yoga!!!

Yoga time for all of you!!..

For those who didn't go to Mobile Creches this time really missed the joy of Yoga. This Saturday I planned to do something which is different from mathematics, science and all, so I thought why not experiment 'Yoga'. The nice weather and the raining mood raise the excitement.

When I reached there everyone was studying, so the first step was to get everyone in a circle so that everyone could see everybody else (I didn't knew what would be the repercussion of this). The very first thing turned out to be very difficult for me, phew!!.. I told everybody to cross their legs and Doh!! Believe me this was the first time in my life I found that there are 15 different ways in which you can cross your legs. Every kid has its own way of sitting. So the few minutes went in getting all the kids sit in a similar pose. It looks easy but buddy it was not. Some of the kids have legs like rubber band (I know you wouldn't believe), you make them cross their legs and just turn around and you would find their legs (Wooops!!.. ) again in the same state as they were before. But finally I managed to get everyone in the same position.

Now it was time to get their thumb and middle finger together (big mistake!!). I told them the same line which I just wrote here and made the mistake of my life. I forgot that every kid had two middle fingers and everyone was ready with his own combination. But, I found a quick and easy solution to this problem by telling everyone to get their thumb and 'first finger' together. Sigh!!.. Thank God you have given us only one 'first finger'.

So now everyone was ready to start and sitting straight in Yoga position.

Now it was the time for the first exercise. I instructed everyone to close their eyes and take deep breath in.

Guess what!!..

Every kid had its one eye open and one closed, peeping to check that others have closed their eyes or not. Now every kid thinking in the similar fashion lead to a new form of Yoga ' Kid Yoga'. Keep one of your eyes open and one closed, Doh!!.. ( Hey hey I coined the term 'Kid Yoga' and I am the first person on this earth to teach that unusual thing.. lol.. I guess I can go for a patent!! Lol..)

Well, all the exercise kept on finishing one by one and ended with shavasan where every kid was lying still on the ground. Ok ok I accept they completed this asan again keeping their one eye open and one closed to see that other kids have closed both their eyes or not. And similar was the case with every kid.

So finally we completed all the exercises keeping one eye open and one closed.

And yeah how to forget a good dose of laugh that was attached with every exercise we did. Every kid was laughing looking at others performing yoga and he didn't knew that others are laughing on him lol..

I hope next time everyone who missed would be there.

Hooooooreeey!!!!!

Shahrukh is back in school!!!....

Moreover, Laxman's parents have agreed to send him to school.

Hip hip hooorey....

Attrition at School

This weekend we were quite disappointed to learn that a couple of the kids have dropped out of school and have started working at the shops in the slum; one of them being Shahrukh Khan.

It seems that the kids themselves would rather go to school than work, but their parents insist that they do otherwise. These kids earn anywhere b/w 400 and 800 rupees a month working at these places, which is not a very small amount of money for these guys.

The teachers at MC said that they will speak to their parents; if they fail to make an impact then we may have to step in. I’m quite appalled that it’s so terribly difficult for parents to understand that their kids tomorrow is more important that the extra money today.

Do people have suggestions on how we should try and tackle this issue? Swapna suggested that we try and teach then crafts which can be sold to generate money for these kids.