by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
Rinky is one of our oldest students. This beautiful and extremely talented hearing impaired girl is one of a kind. She is a fully trained beautician and works part time in a local beauty parlour. While with us she also took sewing classes and tailoring classes.
For some time now she has been asking us to give her a sewing machine so that she can supplement her earnings by stitching clothes for others. Last week a dear friend presented her with a brand new machine and Rinky was on cloud nine. Her dream had come true!
In our land, sadly, hearing impaired children are treated as handicapped and often cannot accede to any formal education or training. Yet if given a chance they surpass themselves and even others. We saw the same spark in Saheeda who sadly left us for a better world and little Pooja will also follow the same path. With just a little help and oodles of love these children of a lesser God amaze everyone. You just have to believe in them and help them grow new wings.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
Elise and Catherine, two of our summer volunteers, decided to make a fruit salad with the junior secondary girls in lieu of the normal English afternoon class.
The first step was to go and purchase the fruits from the local market. The idea was to buy at least one of each kind and thus to learn all the fruit names. For many girls it was the first time they saw a kiwi, a peach or a bunch of grapes. Once the fruit bought it was time to come back to class and get started. Each step was a new lesson: in colour, texture, aroma, a real treat for all the five senses. Then out came the knives and a new set of vocabulary as they peeled, pared, cored, sliced and diced. Each moment was filled with fun and laughter the biggest one being handling the pineapple. As juiced flowed and pits were cast away the excitement grew by the minute.
Soon the salad bowl was full and it was time to taste but not before another lesson this one in geography as the origin of each fruit was reviewed and maps were gleaned. A simple fun activity like making a fruit salad had become a real interactive lesson that every one enjoyed and loved.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 25, 2009 | Uncategorized
The shocking, repulsive, abhorrent incident that happened in Patna recently has left me speechless and numb. I do not know whether to be angry, sad or bewildered. A woman is lured away from her home with the promise of a job. When she discovers that she has been duped and is going to be abused she tries to run away. However she is caught, molested in public, stripped and humiliated for over an hour while hundreds watch and even join in the game. The so called law enforcers a.k.a the police watch as mute spectators, one of them even joining the predators.
I cannot even begin to imagine what the poor woman felt as she bore the humiliation and outrage. Only one of her tormentors has been arrested, the others still run scot-free. No one stepped in to stop the ignominy. Everyone standing there simply watched the show with glee. The entire incident was caught on camera. Wonder why the camera men did not reach out to help her.
Nothing, simply nothing can condone this outrage. Even if the woman was the worst offender possible she did not deserve this treatment. We are supposed to live in a society where laws prevail but for that hour it seemed that all was simply forgotten as predators took the stage and played to the gallery that stood as silent spectators. I wonder why no one wondered how they would feel if they woman in question was one of their own: a sister, a daughter or a wife!
I could go on writing pages about how I feel today or simply limit my words and ask: Is it worth being born a woman in a land where women can be worshiped as an image but never respected in real life?
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 21, 2009 | Uncategorized
Remember little Radha, the elf with brittle bone disease, the one who even appeared on national TV and who twirls like a dervish? The one we love so much and fear for? Well thanks to a kind supporter and friend Radha was examined yesterday by a top orthopedic surgeon and a paediatric surgeon in one of the swankiest hospital of our city.
In the early evening Radha set out with her teacher Shamika and Tiphanie an occupational therapist from France. The little child was frightened and awestruck as she entered the portals of what would have looked to her like a fairy land. She held on to her teacher and did not utter a word. Soon they were in the examining room and the doctors got to work. The child was petrified but did not move or fuss. The examination was soon over and the doctors gave their verdict: Radha would need rodding surgery, a complex series of operations that would straighten her curved bones and perhaps reduce the frequency of her fractures and maybe get her to walk. The decision proclaimed the doctors would be the mother’s. We knew it would have to be ours.
Rodding surgery in any osteogenis imperfecta case is not a cure but simply stabilizes the bones and may improve the quality of life of the patient. A perusal of any article on OI shows that what the child needs is to be handled with care. I wonder how that is possible when you live in a hole in a slum! What goes by the name of home is a hornet’s nest where even the most basic task is fraught with dangers. It is no wonder that Radha has in her short life had more than 50 fractures! Were she to undergo a series of complex surgeries there is no way she could live in this home. She would need safer moorings.
Do we or don’t we. We are faced with an existential question. In her present situation little Radha’s leads as normal a life as possible: she eats, sleeps, plays with her siblings, even looks after the younger ones. She comes to pwhy where she learns, dances, plays and even fights with her classmates. She is handled with as much care as possible. Sometimes a false movement or a forgotten object results in a snapped bone, a trip to the government hospital and the ensuing cast, but Radha is a pro at that by now. In the present situation her bones are deteriorating. In the past month she has lost the use of one of her arms as her bones are slowly bending. In the present situation she may lose the use of the other and then become unable to feed herself or even write. Would the operation solve that. Not quite as the doctors are only talking of her leg bones. How many surgeries would one need to rectify all her problems.
Rodding surgery is complex and lengthy. Her post op care would above all need a clean and hygienic environment where she can heal her bones as the risk of infection is huge. Surgery would mean long absence from all that is familiar to little Radha: her home, her family, her school, her friends. It would entail pain and loneliness for yet unknown results. But one thing is sure: she would never be cured.
Do we or don’t we. Even with surgery Radha will never have a normal life, the kind a girl from a family like hers can aspire for: a marriage and a family of her own. She may be able to get some education, and learn some skill but in a society like ours where does it get her. She would always need to be handled with care and thus need someone to do so.
Doctors give their opinions without assessing the whole situation. They simply see the ailment and the best medical treatment available. But we have to have the courage and grit to view the situation as a whole and see how best to act. At this moment I am unable to decide what to do. I hope the God of lesser beings will once again guide my steps.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 20, 2009 | Uncategorized
During the course of the debate on education that brought Hillary Clinton and actor Amir Khan on a platform a young volunteer stated that she had been trying to teach five children under a tree, but that the kids’ parents would rather they begged or sold trinkets on trains. This was a touching and yet very real question.
Some time back I had asked my staff to ensure that all pwhy children of school going age should be enrolled in school. Parents had to be convinced and in case they did not agree, the child was not to be accepted in our programme. I was soon to learn that it was yet another silly diktat issued without truly assessing the reality of the situation. There is a bunch of girls well in their pre teens who attend our classes and yet do not go to school. The reason is that their mothers work in the morning and need these girls to man the home and tend to their younger siblings. In the afternoon the moms are back at home and the children can come an attend classes at pwhy and thus educate themselves. Needless to say I immediately reversed the diktat and told the teachers not only to accept them in class but to give them special attention. Some of these girls are exceptionally bright and it occurred to me that if they could not been mainstreamed they could perhaps do their schooling through the open school. Something we need to look at.
There are many instances when children are kept away from school not to be put to work and earn money but to enable mothers to work and this is a reality that all law makers and educationists should keep in mind. And if we were to go a step further, parents who send their children to beg or sell trinkets as was the case with the young volunteer, here too it is a matter of survival. The few rupees brought by the child go a long way in keeping the fires burning. In a country as large as ours and where millions live in poverty any law has to be sensitive to the situation on the ground. In pwhy classes we allow girls to bring their baby siblings to class as if we did not, the child would not be allowed to come. The situation is critical in urban slums where often both parents need to work and the only way they can do so is if the elder child is left at home to tend to the smaller ones. And in our society it is the girl child who is sacrificed.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
There were two back to back discussions on education on national TV yesterday evening. One was a recording of the Hillary Clinton Aamir Khan event at St Xavier’s Mumbai, and the other was a live debate with the new education minister and a handful of educationists, NGO reps, students and parents. I sat riveted for two hours as for the first time much of what I have been harping about was being debated. It was music to the ears. For the first time people were talking of school education and the need to give every child quality learning. Many new ideas were mooted. The grade system in preference to the incomprehensible and unjust percentile system, choice rather than marks to decide what stream a child would enter, introduction of vocational subjects and more.
Though the two debates were very different they touched on many common concerns one of them being quality of teachers. Both forums accepted that teaching had to be given more social acceptance. In today’s world you became a teacher because you were unable to become something else. Both forums felt that this was a skewed view and needed to be redressed and many possible solutions were mooted. One person even talked of setting up an Indian Education Service on the lines of the Indian Administrative Service, something I have been suggesting for a long time. It was wonderful to hear the idea mooted on national TV in front of decision makers!
The debates continued touching on many valid points aiming at ensuring that every child gets the opportunity to achieve his or her potential: inclusive education, caring teachers, quality education etc. Many questions were asked and answered and yet something was missing. Each time one touched on the subject of giving quality education to ALL children, answers remained vague and one could even sense an air of unease. You see only one half of India was represented, the other was absent. Solutions proffered to this disturbing questions seemed more like hand outs, the zeal to reform and redress was strangely absent. Once again one fell on the value of programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhyan, or in other words a parallel system as one needed to respect the society of schools! To a question from a young girl on how to teach English to poor kids, as it was her ability to speak English that had got her to be present in this distinguished forum, the answer was to try and excel in one’s own language. It seemed as if English, the real even field leveller was only for the chosen few.
I would have liked at least one person to talk of the common neighborhood school.To me it would be the panacea to all the ills that plague our education system. A common school where children of both Indias could learn and grow together taught by the best talent available: a pipe dream maybe, but one that I will hold on to till I breathe my last.
