Friday, June 4, 2010

Abhigyaan's Impact

While Abhigyaan has been instrumental in helping many mess workers and their kids living inside BITS Pilani, Goa Campus it has been of tremendous importance to the students who run this incredible program effectively and efficiently.

While I joined Abhigyaan it meant nothing more to me than just another experience at BITS. But today when I look back I feel that I can join the dots. Abhigyaan was not just another activity at BITS that I was a part of but its like a milestone of my life or a turning point in my life because it not only inspired me but has given direction to my life.

My association with Abhigyaan brought me closer to a life I always knew existed, but was never aware of the everyday struggles it carried with itself. Interaction with slum dwellers, mess workers and their kids for whom just sitting and talking with college students for an hour could be the reason to walk a mile every other day provided me insights into the simple lives of people from lower segments of our society. It gave me immense pleasure being with them and to continue such interactions when I was shifting to Bangalore for 6 months I joined Dream a Dream as a volunteer. I was happy working at Abhigyaan with a few kids but it was only with Dream a Dream that I could see how much is possible for these kids and what all can be achieved with the efforts of a few individuals. At Dream I saw a lot of innovative approaches while teaching simple concepts to kids so that they can easily retain whatever they are told. It was a fine learning experience for me and I learned to engage my audience with different team games and activities which also teach life skills to kids while they are enjoying the games. This was the time when I found out about a revolutionary movement towards bringing equity in Education going on in India called Teach For India. I got to know about TFI from one of the posts on this very blog by Pratik and only a few days back I was discussing this with him that how things happen in a funny way in our universe.

Since then a lot has happened and to make the long story short I will say that I am joining Teach For India as 2010 fellow for the next two years of my life. :)

PS: You can know more on my experiences with Teach For India here.


1 comments:

Pratik Mandrekar said...

I wasn't aware of dream a dream either. Though there have been many NGO's and organizations working in this domain, very few have had an effective impact. Abhigyaan has been one of them and of couse TFI is a hallmark for everything in that domain. I would like to get involved with dream-a-dream now that I would be in Bangalore for quiet sometime and maybe even volunteer full time. All the best for TFI!

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