Winds of Change

So here we are. After the astounding success of the campaign, “We Volunteer” has lived up to its promise; actually not promise rather the responsibility and duty to show the child beggars the right path of living. The classes for the kids formally kicked off on 4th of May, 2007(Friday). Education is not the only ingredient of the learning process. Rather, the most important things which we people take for granted are certainly missing in these kids. The feeling of brotherhood, team spirit, compassion and an ear for listening, all this is totally missing in their conscience. They have a great inclination to “beat the hell out of the other” on petty issues. Some kids are too violent and coercive. Infact, they just do not know how to settle things with dialogue. A girl named “Taqdeera” is taller than the group and she is just “wild”. But then again, these traits are visible in the privileged children too. To a lesser extent though. Teaching the child beggars the word of discipline is, and will be the most daunting task. Just as any normal kid, they cannot ensconce at one place even for a minute. They keep hopping around from one corner to the other, continuously badgering the “so called teachers” J. Sach mein…dimaag ka dahi banaa dete hainJ
But there is good news too. A few kids have started showing glimpses of inclination towards studies. An iota of improvement and the zeal to learn has been visible for the past two days. With 7 days of sessions the learning curve has still not risen to satisfactory heights for most of the kids. We have taught them counting and English alphabets. But they certainly have problem identifying them. So we have decided to teach them Hindi first and then move towards English. Any other teaching methodology is certainly welcome from anyone who knows about the classes or reads this post. Apart from the lessons, we make them play games like dumb charades, dog and the bone and treasure hunt. The idea is to get some team spirit and sensibility into the group. Dumb charades is a great hit amongst the kids. They are asked to pose or act like a contemporary object like a car, scooter, train, tree etc and the rest have to guess the object. “Dog and the bone” was also like by them. Treasure hunt was not much helpful. Infact they could not understand how to go about it. Anyways, a lot needs to be taught and learnt from them. It is strange that we have to actually go looking for them in the market and gather them to attend the class. But at the end of a 2 hr class, they do not intent to leave us. For the whole session, most of them forget about begging. This is not the case with just the classes. If we sit with them in the market, even at that time they just forget about their begging business and just talk to us or just smile around.

A few words from the volunteers

@Manish

Fisrt things first......i would like to congratulate we volunteer team
for starting their teaching project on a succesful note.
I visited sec 17 centre on May 4, the day when the teaching project was initiated and then i went on May 11,exactly a week later. The changes i could notice were remarkable. Earlier the children were very undisciplined, lacked unity, were abusive, hardly cared for one another. After a week,most of them could be seen playing in teams, in a disciplined manner. I can say for
sure if not all ten atleast half of them have improved a lot. No more abusive words could
be heard, and some like mithun, govinda, vinod and acp were eager to learn too. However
attitude of deepak and taqdira had hardly changed. Little girl Pooja deserves a special
mention as a i found her very keen to learn. she was grasping both alphabets and
numbers quickly. and trust me, govinda can beat hrithik in a dance competition. Another
thing that i observed was that children were not only intersted in learning themselves but
also encouraged the likes of deepak to learn. The signs of team spirit could be
well observed.

@Navnee

i had an experience of a lifetime working with those kids in sector-17....i've been going there since past 1 week or so and have learnt so many things from these kids that sometimes force you to think that despite so many facilities that we've got,we still are unsatisfied...but these kids have nothing with them and still they know how to live life......it was on 5th of may that i met these kids for the first time....i was actually happy with the way these kids welcomed us....all of them just getting up and coming to shake hands....all that they wanted was studying with a bit of masti....not all of them were serious about studies...although just the people like ACP,MITHUN,POOJA,VINOD who are actually interested in learning things....it is fun being there and spending a few hours of the day with them.....it actually gives u a feeling of satisfaction...the classes started on 4th of may and we had to start with the basic stuff like ABC nd then 123 and yea...most importantly the basic etiquettes...what we people noticed was that these kids lacked unity and constantly indulged into quarrels......so we had to think of some games to devise unity among them....games like DUMB CHARADES,DOG AND THE BONE and TREASURE HUNT were the ones which we thought could be helpful....DUMB CHARADES was sooooo much fun.....the kids really liked this one...they were alwayz eager to get there chance to enact something or the other......and to some extent we were successful in acheiving the motive with which the games were played....the quarrels were reduced...although still some elements are there which tend to disturb others as well..!!!during the study sessions we faced some problem in teaching them english i.e. the general ABC so ankush suggested that they should be taught hindi first so that its easy for them to recognize things.......hindi classes wil be started from monday....now let us see what happens..!!!the best part during these classes was wen the children gave their dance performances.....GOVINDA dances so well...!!!!u must c dat..!!!!!!!....dis guy GOVINDA has a totally DON kinds behaviour although hez the youngest of all i guess..!!!!!!! lol..!!!!!another thing which i gotto know was that one of these kids named MITHUN is into gutkha.....i was actually shocked that a guy of his age is into such stuff....it was at that time that we told mithun to stop all this on a condition that we'll get him a chewing gum everyday...and i guess....it was the last time he had gutkha....and now....he gets one chewing gum everyday...!!!!!!all in all....we are successful in what we wanted to some extent...but still a lot more needs to be done...!!!!!!

Great going volunteers!!!!!!


The kids who have been the attending classes are:

Mithun, ACP, Taqdeera, Deepak, Pooja, Savitri, Rahul, Bidiya, Sanjo, Monika, Govinda, Sunny, Vinod, Chottua, Sonu, Pooja(sunny’s sister), Aakash(not a beggar).

Volunteer Teachers

Preet, Kaval, Ankush, Ankita, Navnee, Rohit.

Sincere thanks to Manish, Dr. Vineet, Bikram, Prabhjot for chipping in too.

If anyone has any views, suggestions and better methodologies, please let us know...
Give us ideas through which we can inculcate a sense of team spirit amongst these kids.


We Initiate.....Do You???

Mera Bachaa Sabse Acha! ( Guardian of the little Angels)

Confused over the topic??
Ok I’ll explain.
The We Volunteers have contrived a new strategy into the organization where each volunteer will be adopting a slum kid/beggar under the name
“Mera Bachcha Sabse Acha:)” or “Guardian of the little Angels.”

The key aim of this methodology is to be more target-oriented and accountable towards the cardinal objective of “We Volunteer.” Every volunteer will take care of the basic needs of the kid assigned to him/her. The basic needs could be clothing, education, nutrition, health care and recreation. The We Volunteers will still be working as a cohesive unit but with this methodology in place, the progress would be defined in individuals rather than in groups. The impetus for this new approach is that every kid has different interests and attitude. Thus, dealing with them in groups will make some children neglected. Moreover, the volunteer will have a clear understanding of his job and duties. The finance for this project will be borne by the “We Volunteer” inhouse treasury. So volunteers find your kid and start the process of individual change.

The Start

A meeting of the Beggar Rescue Team was held yesterday to implement the concept.
Volunteers Present: Preet, Ankush, Karan, Kaval, Shyam, Sudheesh and Akashdeep.

As the discussions over the “Mera Bhachcha Sabse Acha” methodology went forward, we all decided to start the project right away. The question was, Where to start from? The first answer that came to mind was to initiate with that family living in a sewerage pipe at the Piccadilly crossing in sector 35. We all made a beeline to that so called home of that family. Reaching there we all saw the same dismal conditions in which the kids and their parents were living, eating, sleeping and playing(meanwhile, Akashdeep had to leave for some urgent work). The kids met us with same enthusiasm and affection. It is very funny that everytime we meet them, we have to tell our names again and again. They don’t seem to remember for some unknown reasons, Preet had some tough and hilarious time making his adopted kid remember his name :) I’ll come back to this episode a few lines later.

We talked to a lady who was the mother of two kids in that group of 15. She was willing to let her children take up school, but due to lack of money and income she could not make arrangements of their education. All the kids in the group collect garbage from house and shops. Yes! Garbage…at the sight of which we just shut all out senses….and these little kids make their living from it and also stay in its vicinity. Meanwhile, there was one more family which had come from Ahemedabad, Gujarat to make some living. They had some land to till back home but just to make more bucks, they travel to Chandigarh to sell and buy articles to resell them at their place. They had three kids.

The most interesting thing that we got to know was that the adults had voting cards issued on their names. Amazing isn’t it. The politicians are concerned about their voting rights but none so ever about the other most important right. The right to education and the right to live a healthy life and eat three end meals. Now you’ll argue that people like these go for voting just to make some money being offered as the lure by the politicians. But why shouldn’t they? If an IIM graduate can drop a National Company’s offer to join a firm in London because of more moolah, if the government servants take kickbacks in most of the development works in the country, why can’t these people think about in terms of money?

Anyways, we all decided to pick one kid each and start over with the project. The following is the first list of Guardians and their Angels.
Preet – Abdul and Muskan
Kaval – Neena
Ankush – Sabeena
Shyam – Rajeeb
Karan - Shamsher Ali
Sudheesh-Mohabbat:)

All the volunteers will take care of the needs of their respective kids from now on.
With each volunteer taking up his/her kid, the process of making these kids remember our names began.

Sudheesh and Shyam were the lucky ones since the kids who were assigned to them were elder as compared to the others in the lot. So they could recall the names easily.
As every other volunteer tried to make the kid remember his/her name, some funny incidents came into light. I’ll start with Preet:) his kid Abdul made different noises while uttering Preet’s name. This name evolution of Preet continued till the very last moment.
Preet – Apkaa naam kya hai?
Kid – Abdul
Preet – Mera naam Preet hai.
Preet – mera naam batao abb?
Abdul – naaaaaam
Preet – arre mera naaam bolo
Abdul – mera naaam
Preet – tumhara naam abdul hai, mera naam kya hai bolo?
Abdul – Mera naaam,,,lolz
Preet bhi kartoos…uska kid usss se bhi badaa kaartoos…lol….he was just repeating what Preet uttered:)
Me- tell him your middle name..may be he can remember that.
Preet – Acha mera naam Arjun bhi hai…Bolo Arjun….
Abdul – ashfoooooshshshshs…(this was the most hilarious)

The same happned to other kids. Though they didn’t murder our names like Preet’s kid did.
But, they had difficulty in remembering our names. It could be due to that fact that they are not used to names like ours. And this is the reason that the name of the Mascot of our organization is “Chottu”, which complies with the understanding level of the slum kids and beggars.

We talked to the few adults of the family standing there; meanwhile, Kaval played a few games with the kids.

As Preet says, if every rich takes care of every poor, there will be no poor.
So we signed of the day with some thinking to do.

All those who read this post, please take a look around and take up some initiative. For those who are in Chandigarh, we are always looking for motivated and compassionate people to join in with us. It’s not difficult…..just needs time..
If you have any suggestions, views, ideas or comments………do reply through comment posting/email/phone call/meet in person.

We can and we will…

We Initiate………….Do You??