Regarding recent visit to Dhanbad

[mohit]

Hi everyone

Hope you all are doing well in life and chasing your dreams with all enthusiasm . I am writing this mail to share my feelings , highlight the issues and suggest some solutions seeking further deliberations from everyone concerned with journey of Kartavya.

I visited the Centre 2 and Lahabani basti after almost 6 years although i was yearning to see the progress of our dear young friends and dedication of new team of volunteers for quite long. I witnessed number of changes at both structural and functional levels.

The very first thing I noticed at kartavya was a good participation of children for practicing Karate. For last couple of years , the children are continuously reaching newer pinnacles in learning Karate . The volunteers must be congratulated for their persistent efforts to make this a routine activity of Kartavya. Honestly , it was very very heartening for me to see the senior girls leading the practice sessions ; the same girls i saw in 2012 and 2013 who were not bold , not empowered enough. This extra curricular activity has certainly empowered them , no doubt . The future set of volunteers are requested to keep this activity sustained to involve more and more children .

 I  would like to share one more powerful experience . I was inquiring the children who all had assembled in a classroom regarding level of their spoken English and whether someone can converse with me that time fluently. Then a girl volunteered and she was , i guess , better than me at that time and that signified as a reward to all the present and past volunteers. I was more so happy because I had taught that girl child way back in 2010-11 and after 8-9 years , today she stands very much empowered to take the world.

Some of the concerns I am sharing here which need attention of all of us.

1.        It was not a pleasing thing for me to witness a good number of male children having dropped out of the school system. Some are even earning 8-9000 per month. I understand that efforts for open schooling are being made , but the present team of volunteers are required to take account of this issue seriously and make sure that at least these students of ours complete the matriculation. A small interaction with Vijay made me believe that they dropped out due to some unavoidable circumstances but they are comfortable with joining the regular schooling system / open schooling.

2.      Children like Arti and Rahul were taught by me for couple of years and I genuinely believe that they will excel in life given continuous support. But , right now , the academics of Lucious Public School after class 8 is of bad quality as  I came to know from young children and volunteers.

The volunteers are requested to take this issue urgently as compromising with their education and wasting our resources makes no sense. Their admission into better schools is pressing need now.

3.     One more additional related issue here is regarding state of affairs at Dhaiya school. I could see the children literally begging to change their school as the existing one is of sub-optimal / worse standards. 

The volunteers are exhorted to take this as priority as a good number of students are studying ( not literally ) there. New and better schools demanded by them seemed very genuine in this case.

Also, a child named Astha requested for change from Hindi to ENGLISH medium school. Present volunteers please keep a tab of such issues .

4.     The children in the Lahabani basti requested for a reading room in their locality as there is frequent power cuts and since children have grown up now , they need to study in night also as they get very less time for self study. I think this is doable thing. The concerned volunteers are requested to follow up this case and find out a feasible solution.

5. TO THE  PASSING OUT FINAL YEAR VOLUNTEERS :

If you are still in the campus , please make sure that , you pass on the baton to new final year in a smooth manner by ensuring all the proper communications of roles and responsibilities. And also ensure that collections of cycles, stationary , books etc are collected in a good number and used by us . The mothers of many girl students were requesting for cycles. See, if you people can help them in this regard in Lahabani basti. And also, see if schemes of Jharkhand govt. can be used regarding giving free bicycles to girl children in govt. schools.

6.        A request to seniors and friends : Based on my visit , i found that the number of volunteers is quite low due to unavoidable reasons. Still, serving at Kartavya is a very good opportunity at ISM , i believe. The passed out volunteers can devote some time in coming months where I suggest a meeting to take place at Dhanbad where we can take stock of things and also sensitize the 1st and 2nd year students towards this cause. The lack of volunteers is seriously affecting our efforts both at academic and financial fronts. The role of KFT has been severely affected due to this , i suppose.

7.  To the Finance Team : This team used to be very active during our times. Based on my personal experiences , i can see that this is not the same case today. I had  arranged number of sponsors in the past but they were never followed up and we lost the crucial money. The present volunteers need to appreciate their pivotal role and understand how much compromised our efforts become due to such nature of work. 

Since this team generally doesn't require field visits in Dhanbad, so I believe more of female volunteers can be inducted by the current volunteers and this is doable. This time also i am arranging a set of 15-20 sponsors and I expect a proper follow up and timely communication with the sponsors.

8.      Based on RTE provisions , new admissions' work is though under progress , present volunteers please make sure that the pace is not slow and a survey of new children is also done.

9. Regarding Digital literacy , present volunteers are requested to ensure computer systems are repaired and designated slots on a weekly basis are fixed for teaching children with digital education. In this regard only , we should be also thinking about Smart education where smartphones and desktops can be used for faster learning of children.

 10. In my work space this time , i tried one idea. Generally , whenever our friends and colleagues get married , we pool money for the gifts ; so this time i suggested to have half the money kept aside for sponsoring education of children and in this fashion everyone agreed and i arranged 30k for social causes of which 20k will go to Kartavya and my batchmates have agreed to keep this activity sustained.

11. With the interactions with the elder children, i got to know about many issues which many times our current ISM friends can't deal with and often these issues don't surface up and reach our levels. In this regard , can we have some online interface where children can directly interact with us and share their concerns. The ideas are welcome.

12. The last point is regarding the old issue of child marriage which we also used to face and today also it's prevalent in Lahabani basti . I, myself saw one of my students as a married girl this time. These challenges throw up every time and despite our best efforts , we often fail to address them. But , we need to be persistent and keep empowering the girls through education , karate and other activities.  

I expect a follow up discussion to this mail and consensus over a meeting at Dhanbad in the near future. Due to my current work profile based at Kolkata, I will visit Dhanbad again and assess the state of affairs hoping it to move in a positive pace.

Regards

मोहित कुमार 

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