18th June, 2009

We started early in the morning for Baruipur. NISHTHA had booked a guest house for us in Dhakuria, in south Calcutta. We were to drop our stuff there and take a local train to Baruipur. The guest house (Sona Guest house) was a typical city guest house mostly used by corporate houses for their clients/ employees - which in other words means air conditioners/ television sets in all the rooms. Not only was this place a little too far from Baruipur for daily travel, but a city guest house,AC and TV don’t really sound road trip-ish. So, we decided to find some local accommodation at Baruipur.
A nice train and rickshaw ride, and we were at the big, red NISHTHA building. Mina di (NISHTHA’s Secretary) welcomed us at NISHTHA. She spoke to us about various projects we can undertake at NISHTHA. We were to begin with the Day Boarding School Project. NISHTHA runs a day boarding school for standard V to VIII students (girls) from near by villages. These girls go to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan Schools in the morning, where they are picked up NISHTHA’s bus when the school gets over. The project is a year old and was started to reduce the dropout rates amongst girls in near by villages. As Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan Schools have about 130 students/class, unable to follow much in the class, most of these girls (who are first learners in their families) dropout. Since all these girls come from really poor families, they have to help their parents with household chores and farming. This also means very little time for them to study. Dropping out also translates to early marriage.  So, NISHTHA brings these girls to the day boarding school at around 11 in the morning, provides them lunch, and helps them learn their lessons and complete their assignments.These kids are dropped off at a dropping point in the evening. You can call this school a coaching centre for all practical purposes. The only difference being, unlike the coaching centres we know of, this one isn’t into minting money.

We learnt about what goes into starting a new project by an NGO. NISHTHA’s volunteers went to all the houses in the targeted villages, spoke to them about the day boarding school project, conducted meetings with parents and convinced them to send their children to the school. Our role in this project was to help the teachers teach English to these kids. There are 6 teachers for 126 students at the school. It is extremely difficult to find teachers who can teach English in rural India. The best part about teachers at NISHTHA was, they were willing to learn from us. It was overwhelming to see their enthusiasm - 40 year olds who have been teaching all their life learn from 20 year olds like us. It was a tough job ahead, because English is a language, and a language can be best learnt by speaking,these kids were taught English alphabets in standard IVth (as per the state board) and the teachers weren’t comfortable in speaking in English either. We decided to go to all the classes and just observe the teachers and kids.

So,we just went to all the classes, sat in one corner and observed teachers teach and students learn. These girls are really sharp, as was evident from Math classes. There was no way that they cannot learn English, if guided properly and definitely, none of them deserved to get married early. There was just this inhibhition about an alien language, but aren’t we all scared when it comes to learning a new language? - they reminded me of my French classes at BITS.

Overall it was very nice to see the teachers try interactive ways/ teaching models to teach the kids. The song “Chotto Khokha bolche, shuno re bhai…Podha lekha shikhe maanush ho shobai” (Little kid says ,pay heed ,education is what we all need) taught to kids by the music teacher was stuck in Shailee’s and mine head throughout the trip

There was something about this dada who would always be found at NISHTHA's gate..he was really protective of the building :)

Shailee and Me with the teachers. That is Parshuram da on extreme left, he is the Principal of the school and an avid learner ! The dada in the middle is the best Maths teacher I have come across ! His actions and animations are brilliant. The didi in the pic is the Music teacher. And this wonderful pic is taken by a class 6 student !! :)

How they loved getting clicked !

P.S Thanks @silence_remixed for the poetic translation, Nilanjana for the nigga version (lil kid says ssup bro, time for education, yo!) and Saha, for well, trying