Help needed - Teach For India
Siddharth Mandayam
Hello everyone,
As most of you already know, I joined TEACH FOR INDIA, an organization that aims to eliminate inequity in education in the country 2 months ago. Now, I'm class teacher to 31 second grade kids in a low income school in Yerwada, Pune. I would like to borrow five minutes from your schedule to read this mail.
It's been 2 weeks since I joined my school and the experience has been so powerful that I can't find the right words to describe it. I did a community visit and realized that more than 75% of my kids live under tin sheets or in the streets. Most of the parents are drunkards, some work for quotation teams and obviously, the students don't have a learning environment at their homes. One of my kids, Diya, lives in a tin sheet inside a slum where men make alcohol. When I walked into her house, I saw her running around it naked and the men drinking away all the alcohol to glory. I'm sure all of you agree that these kids deserve better than that. If not more, they deserve the quality of education that most of us were lucky to have.
Even though my school is doing all that it can to garner enough resources to create a welcoming enivornment in the school, we are still short of even the basic resources. The students sit on the floor, the classrooms aren't equipped with light or fans and it looks like a dungeon. There are no shelves in the class and the students from streets throw stones through the broken windows. A lot has to change in this front if I've to push them towards academic achievement. For the same, I will need all your help in every which way possible. If you think that these kids should have an atmosphere where they can come learn and enjoy, then please read the following list.
a) Donate any sports equipment that you might have and is not in use - Be it a cricket ball or even a rugby one! Every drop counts. I have a sports theme and will need all of it to ensure maximum investment of the students.
b) Donate any sports journals, sportstars, posters of players, jerseys that you might have and is not being used regularly. Again, anything and everything counts!
c) Donate time. If any of you are in Pune or can be in Pune anytime soon, feel free to come to my class and help in teaching, fun activities or even sports. Getting to see more and more of the outside world will be of great help to the kids
d) Let me know if you have contacts in Pune who can sponsor field trips to different places in the city for my kids.
e) Buy and donate soft cushions for the kids to sit while in the reading center.
f) Buy and donate a 6 boxed shelf about 100 cm * 60 cm in size. You may donate any shelf that you think can be used as a small class library.
g) You may also make donations in form of cash if you are willing to. An amount as small as 100 rupees to one as big as 30,000 is welcome. Please note that any big amount donation that you make will come through proper official channel. Also, I'm entirely accountable for your money. I shall give you detailed account of how I spent every single pie of money in the classroom.
h) Donate books! Please find attached a list of some books that will be really useful for the class. But, any other books are also welcome. Just be cognizant of the fact that my kids are in Grade 2.
Also, please forward this mail to your peers in office/college and also to your seniors. If you think your organization can be of help, do let me know of that too.
It would be really really great to see some sense of urgency. The faster you respond, the faster the kids will progress. There is a lot that needs to be done in this regard. Every bit of help that you do will go down as a significant change factor in some of the kids' lives. I'm sure your passion for the nation goes beyond cricket!
Thanks in advance. Please drop me a mail soon if you can be of help in any way. Awaiting your reply with hope and belief.
Regards,
Vikas Plakkot
Class Teacher, 2-B
M.E.M.S, Yerwada, Pune
Ph: +91-8806308053
I TEACH FOR INDIA - One day all children will attain an excellent education
Regards
Ramabhadran Iyengar
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Siddharth M H
