by Anuradha Bakshi | May 19, 2010 | women centre
For the past two weeks Ram Bacchan has been guarding our house as the husband his away and everyone at the project felt that we (Shamika and I) needed to be protected particularly in the wake of a recent spate of murders of senior citizens ( I guess I qualify the appellation) in the vicinity. So they decided to send Ram Bacchan, the night guard of the women centre to our home.
Ram Bacchan is a little man, not more than five six inches feet. He has a sunny disposition and a huge smile. Moreover he is very dedicated and spends the night awake and alert. I sometimes wonder at the wisdom of having night guards, as is the practice in Delhi, as they are often ordinary unarmed men and would be no match to any professional robber or gang. But look around you and almost every home of a certain stature has one of them. Some even have uniforms of all shades and hues as if that alone would deter potential thieves. Anyway I am not one to complain as it provides jobs to many. I guess it is more a comfort factor to know that someone if awake while you sleep. Another idiosyncrasy of the rich I guess.
We normally never have one but as I said earlier my staff felt over protective and I had no option but quietly acquiesce. So Ram Bacchan has been part of the household for the past two weeks. His is another should I say, success story of pwhy. It began two years ago when one of our students at the women centre came to us and told us that they were being thrown out of their home by their landlord as they had not been able to pay the rent for several months, and thus the young girl said she may not be able to come to pwhy. Gita was and is one our brightest student and she and her siblings had been coming to pwhy for quite some time. We decided to find out what happened and asked her to call her mom. It transpired that the father had a good job in a factory but had been ill for some time and hence lost his employment. The meagre resources of the family had gone in his treatment and they had no money to pay the rent. The staff of the women centre was moved by the plight of this simple and brave family, more so because the children were exceptionally bright. They passed the hat around and paid the rent and found a job for the mother while the father lay convalescing.
A few weeks later, when Ram Bacchan was well again, the centre needed a night guard as the place lies empty post 6 pm, so we gave him the job and never regretted it. His pleasant temperament, his willingness to work and his dedication were appreciated by all. And now he is part and parcel of the women centre and project why! His children come to the centre without fail and are excellent students who often top their class. Gita again topped all sections of her school. His wife still works in the home of our coordinator.
A few months ago all seemed lost for this little family. Had help not come they would have had to move out of their home, the children would have dropped out of school and God only knows what would have happened to them. All it took was a little compassion to set things back on track.
In a day or two the husband will be back and Ram Bacchan will move back to his night post at the centre. It has been a pleasure having him. He brought sunshine in the dead of night. We will miss him.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 23, 2010 | okhla, women centre
Christopher James is a magician, but a magician with a huge heart. A chance encounter in a pub with one of our volunteers, few words exchanged and voila, Chris was all set to come and spread some magic in the lives of our kids.
He came this morning armed with his bag of tricks and enthralled the children at Okhla first.
Tables flew, roses appeared thanks to a sprinkle of magic powder, 50 rs notes turned to 500 rs one. And the children watched mesmerised and spell bound. Time stood still. For those precious moments the Okhla centre got transformed into a dreamland where everything looked possible.
Chris conjured Canadian coins out of nowhere and then asked his little assistant what her dream was before handing her over a coin. She said she wanted to buy a car. She clutched her coin and was found asking her friends whether she could walk into a shop with the coin and actually get a car! We all smiled but come to think of it it was a magic coin. The boys loved the card tricks and everyone was transfixed by the 50 rs that became 500! Some of the adults were actually seen looking into their pockets for a note to be transformed.
The show was over, too soon for some. Next stop was the women centre. As there was a little time left, Shamika gathered some courage and asked Chris whether he would come to the special section and do a few tricks for the special kids. He agreed and tables flew again for our very special souls. The children were fascinated and even if they could not express in words what they felt, all you had to do was look at their faces!
Chris cast his spell again for the children of our women centre. There again time stood still and everyone was transfixed, even the adults who completely forgot, much to my chagrin, to take pictures though the camera stood charged and ready waiting to be picked up!
Thank you Chris for having brought a ray of hope and joy to our children. God bless you!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 26, 2010 | okhla, women centre
For the past few weeks we have been on a mission: find 2 good English teachers for our new focus on quality programme scheduled to begin on April 1st. To be on the safer side and ensure that all goes according to plan, we decided to begin our search way earlier and try out potential candidates so as to be ready on the given day.
Finding a teacher to teach spoken English to class 2 to 5 kids did not at first seem a very daunting task. We would soon find out how wrong we were! We first took the easy road – word to mouth – and spoke to everyone we knew. The result was negative, no one came forward. I was a little saddened as I had hoped that some one would come forward. We then decided to place an ad in the leading newspapers. We did get flooded with calls but the moment the word slum was mentioned, the potential candidate backed out. In some cases we were the ones who beat a hasty retreat as astronomical salaries were asked ( 30 and 40 K)! However we did have a tiny handful of people who accepted to come for an interview.
We finally selected two on trial: one with no teaching experience but a pleasing personality and a good command on the language, and the other with some teaching experience, a fair command on the language but a slightly reserved personality. Whereas the former worked out like a dream and now teaches at the women centre, the later was a sad reflection on the reality that is India. Both ladies belonged to the middle class, but whereas one had an open mind the other was closed and set in her ways. When she realised that her colleagues at Okhla were from an inferior social strata, she shut them out choosing to isolate herself. She did not even sit with them at lunch time. One would have looked over that aberration has she bonded with the kids, but here again she kept them at bay. She never smiled or laughed with them but chided and scolded that all the time. It was a nightmare that has to be ended and we thanked her and asked her to leave. What really shocked us all was when she said: If you expect me to take a child on my lap like the volunteers do, I will never do it! Well said ma’am, and yes we expect you to do that but we understand your reluctance but do not and cannot accept it.
So the hunt began again and we found a person who had taught for 14 years in an English speaking school in a small town in India. We called her for an interview. We asked her the usual questions and were a little perplexed when all we got as answers were one words: No, Yes, I can.. She was unable to form a single complete sentence. The poor lady was simply a reflection on the state of education in the country. We of course rejected her and as I write these words the search is still on.
It is sad but true that some realities permeate every aspect of our lives. The innocuous search for a simple teacher shows the abysmal state of our education and reflects the depth of our social stigmas making us want to scream once again: all is not well in India!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 17, 2009 | women centre
I wish there were 240 hours in a day and I wish I had the gift of ubiquity! Wishful thinking but if that were the case I would have spent most of my time with the children of project why in each of our 11 centres. Sadly that is not possible and my visits to the project centres are often virtual, via the pictures I receive at the end of the day. Yesterday I got a camera full of pictures from the women centre and spent a long time browsing through them. And as I did, I experienced a range of emotions: from excitement, to bewilderment, to pride and even a tinge of sadness at having stayed away for so long.
Seeing little Meher dance and prance and even try her hand at computer surfing was incredible. And that is not all, her new pixie hairstyle, a little like my own, made me realise how time flies. It seemed just like yesterday when I first lay my eyes on her scalded scalp and wondered what her morrows would hold. In a few weeks she will sit for her admission test and in April pack her little bags and joining our incredible five at boarding school! Who says miracles do not happen.
Then there were umpteen pictures of children studying. Children of different ages, all very serious and motivated notwithstanding the difficult conditions or lack of resources. The creche however looked stunning with its new pink and white harlequin look! Then there were pictures of the Xmas party organised by members of a young church group. They were carols and cookies and loads of fun and the number of children was staggering. Thank God the roof was solid! My mind went back with nostalgia the first party organised at the women centre, a Xmas party for predominantly Muslim kids. But then as Usha Uthup says in her delightful song entitled Eid, be it Eid, Xmas or Diwali we wear new clothes, we eat good food, we visit relatives!
Then there were pictures of the sewing circle of Khader, the one we had begun with so much hope almost exactly two years ago. Today over 50 ladies has graduated with certificates and 50 more were in the midst of completing their course. As I looked closer I realised that some of them were stitching cloth bags, the ones that we make on order for one of our funders and hence these women had taken the first step towards financial independence. True there was a long way to go but I knew we would get there.
The last few pictures were of the monthly parents meeting. It was heartwarming to see that here too the numbers were staggering. And to say that not so long ago there were never more than a handful of parents at such meetings.
What an incredible journey it had been, one that had begun hesitantly barely two years ago. Share some of these Kodak moments with us.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 4, 2009 | okhla, women centre
The recent award ceremony and ensuing conclave on confronting the challenge of corruption concluded two days ago. Most participants must have returned to their pursuits and for many life would go on as usual. Somehow that was not the case for me. The two days spent amongst people who are trying to make a difference and sharing their experiences and views has had a deep impact on me and has compelled me to stop and think about project why and its relevance if any. Please bear with me as I share some thoughts as they may bring about a real change in the work we have been doing for the past decade.
While debating on the disturbing issue of corruption what came to the fore was the fact that there was a complete erosion of values across the social spectrum. For every one, rich or poor, corruption had become a way of life, a belief system, something that one and all had accepted and stopped questioning. This was indeed a dangerous situation, one that needed to be addressed. Many ideas were mooted and debated, the main one being: how does one re-instill values in each and every strata of society?
The conclave ended but the disturbing questions raised had taken root in my mind. Something was not quite right. For the past 10 years we at project why had been trying to make a difference and yet at this moment it seemed that we had not really been able to do much. The perturbing why that had resulted in the setting of project why had been: why do so many children drop out of school? And for the past ten years that is the issue we had been addressing. Hence for the past ten years we at project why had been meticulously ensuring that no child drop out of school and I must admit we did a good job. Our benchmark had been numbers and we achieved tangible success as our numbers rose from 40 to 800! And in our desire to excel we perhaps forgot to look at other issues altogether. Or was it that we just sank into another comfort zone. Last week’s conclave shook me out of that complacency.
Giving children the possibility to remain in school and hopefully complete their schooling is undoubtedly laudable, but is it sufficient? To bring about the change we all seek what is needed is agents of change at each and every level of society and an average or sadly often mediocre class XII certificate cannot do that. The issues that plague our society are far larger. Let me give you an example that may explain what I am trying to get at.
We all know how important it has become to save the environment and reduce our carbon footprint and yet this footprint is growing surreptitiously in every little sum hovel. When I first walked into the home of one of my staff members who lives in what we all call a slum ten years ago, they had one small black and white TV, a few tube lights and a fan. Today thanks to an increased income and two dowries they have 3 colour TVs, two refrigerators, two DVD players, 2 coolers, a washing machine and more! The family was once very poor and thus to them all these new additions are endorsements of the fact that they have climbed the social ladder and bettered their worth. It is impossible to walk into this home and talk of carbon foot prints! If we want to see change one day in this home, it can only come when the little girl who is growing up in this home and attends what is called an upmarket school, brings about a wind of change. And that will be possible because she is getting a sound and holistic education.
Yes what I am trying to say is that the time has come for us at project why to mutate and replace quantity by quality. Today in our chase for numbers we often have children who spend short stints with us and then move on. This can be for a wide range of reasons: parents relocating because of work or increased rents, a new NGO opening and luring children away etc. Increased numbers also means our inability to provide more than basic instruction because of paucity of time or shortage of funds. And even if a child stays on with us and completes her of his schooling, she or he is far too often swallowed by the prevailing system: an early marriage or a mediocre job to help the family. With 800 children it is impossible for us to maintain close contact with the family and mentor the future of the child.
Would it not be better if we stopped our obsession with numbers and sought quality. Rather than 800 kids, we only reached out to let us say 200 and gave them quality education. Children that we would ensure remained with us and grow with us. Children we would give more than instruction in the three Rs! Children we could follow as they bloom.
True it is ambitious. True it will not be easy. One cannot just cast away a few hundred of children. Then how does one select the chosen few? My brain has been working on overdrive and after much thought a possible option comes to mind. Perhaps we could take the class I, II and III children of let us say Okhla and the women centre and begin with them. Thus we would add a new class every year till we reach class VIII and only take on new children in class I. The rest of the classes would carry on as usual with the only difference that we would not take any new kids, or replace any child who leaves.
The other point that comes to mind would be the increase in costs. At present what would be needed would be two English teachers and a small activities budget. The rest would have to be managed within existing resources. The children would come to project why for three and not one hour. The children of the pilot project would continue having one hour of school support but would have an extra hour of English and an hour of for wanted of a better word: general knowledge. This would range from environment, to story telling, to science, geography etc all taught in an interactive and fun manner. This is the bare bones idea. It will of course have to be fine tuned as we go on.
This will enable us to make the much needed shift from quantity to quality and truly make a difference. However this can only happen if all who support us continue to do so!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 19, 2009 | okhla, women centre
Our Okhla centre has a brand new computer class! Well it is what only pwhy would call a class. It consists of one old laptop and a very motivated young teacher, a rickety table and a bunch of starry eyed kids.
Some time back, Dipankar the secondary teacher at Okhla hesitantly asked whether we could start a computer class. He told us that there was not a single computer learning facility in the vicinity and that the children were very keen on learning computers. What children ask, children get is that not the pwhy motto! But how would we conjure this one. Our main computer centre did not have a single computer to spare and the newly set up one at the women centre barely had enough resources to meet their requirements. But there is a god that listens to children and a little miracle came our way: someone donated us an old laptop. That was enough for us to launch our Okhla Cyberwhy!
So in the midst of a garbage dump, inside a rickety structure, on a shaky table sits a prize possession – a laptop – and around it sit a bevy of eager kids rearing to learn what they know might hold a key to a better future. It is a sight to see and savour and yet it also makes us wonder at how little is needed to transform lives and how little is actually done. These children who come from the poorest families also have dreams and aspirations and it is for us adults to fulfill them. But do we? That is the question.
For the past two weeks Ram Bacchan has been guarding our house as the husband his away and everyone at the project felt that we (Shamika and I) needed to be protected particularly in the wake of a recent spate of murders of senior citizens ( I guess I qualify the appellation) in the vicinity. So they decided to send Ram Bacchan, the night guard of the women centre to our home.
