Rajat Maheshwari is one of the founders of AID's Prayas initiative. He works with ST Microelectronics currently and due to his tough work schedule has not been able to make it to Prayas regularly nowadays. To his surprise things have in the course of past two years changes a lot. Here are his comments:
I am very poor in writing...but Darshan is asking from long time to write something...so please tolerate....
Darshan already mentioned, it was like one family on picnic :)....Children's enjoyed and all of us also....and frankly speaking was trying to extend the picnic time also :D.....thanks a lot to everybody for making the event a BIG SUCCESS....
And let me phrase a small incident...may be around 3 weeks ago, was sitting in one of the night class and Darshan wrote some sentence in Hindi on board and asked the children's for English translation....I was not focusing on what he wrote actually...suddenly I heard Sona speaking something in English....in fact that was the exact translation of what Darshan wrote in Hindi with all tense and grammar correct.....was shocked...I kept smiling all the time in the class without any reason ( for me the reason was their )....Sona was the same student we use to teach "ABCD" when we started Prayas...not only Sona, mostly all the children's in the class were able to translate....it's a very small thing which gave me the feeling what really we have achieved...."HATS OFF TO ALL OF YOU"....... I am sometimes coming to evening classes and can see "Prayas family" putting heart to teach children's....everybody is contributing in someway....
Anyways let's continue our efforts and hope we can get many of our children's admitted in Nai Disha....
And, so today together we stand to bring hope and happiness to the lives of the children and families associated with Prayas.
It was another bright afternoon when I was planning for an evening movie, a friend called up and asked me to accompany for Prayas class instead. Walking along a path way approximately twice as wide as I am, I entered a small room that had just enough accessories to make it look like a classroom:) Somebody was teaching a set of kids that mostly consisted girls. After creating a mild happening I settled down to be a pseudo student for another half an hour. Then promoted as a teacher again a pseudo one I continued with that maths class. Kids had monotonous expression to everything I said, just a plain simple smile, no matter if its a instruction, a formula or a question thrown to them. I seriously had no clue if anything I said made sense to them or not, so, mostly my reaction was also just the same. The class ended just like that, all I could conclude was they all have a smiling face:)
Further classes were much more expressive, I see eclectic minds converging at Prayas. Few kids enjoy studying, few others enjoy the gathering, overall most of them find a reason to come. We are happy to see them inclined towards studies, they think themselves to be better than other community kids that don't come to the classes, they know its good to bath daily, they feel its good to know things around, they like to be aware and we relish all these feelings vicariously.
We plan to move ahead and set up a small arena to make it more look like a proper school. In the process, whole arrangement, architecture, color choices, I enjoyed watching people turn to interior designers:) A happy incidence I remember, Yesterday, 1st Jan 09 , got call from kids, Poonam shouted on phone and wished Didi Happy Diwali:) Mann! it was awesome....sorry sorry didi...Happy new year:) All in all its been good. With consequent classes I tried perceiving their level of understanding and requirements and more or less am still doing the same:) Lets just hope our effort help the kids understand their capability and will and make their living meaningful.
Prayas has been more than 3 years in the nurturing from a humble beginning. From supporting a few teenage boys, post their work schedules, through late evening sessions to a full fledged preparatory school for young girls and boys we have grown leaps and bounds. From a humble one room setup inside the community we are moving into a full blown Centre – a two room set with more space for as the children say, playing and study.
The volunteers or friends of Prayas have been a dedicated set of didi's and bhaiyya's for the children for this span. And the beginning of this year sure had a few defining and milestone setting moments that we have to share with you.
Inauguration of our new class at Nayabans, Sector 16, NOIDA on 11th Jan '09
We inaugurated the 'much talked about' new center of Prayas. It was attended by most of the children's parents plus a whole bunch of volunteers. We briefed and introduced Prayas covering how it evolved to its current level, why we felt the need to start the new centre and what value new set up would bring to the children to the parents. Nikunj was formally introduced to as a full time teacher. The parents of – Subi, Sabreen, Sajjad, Sona & Zulekha, who we placed into Nai Disha (a free school for under-privileged children at Sector 29, NOIDA) shared their experiences and changes felt by them in their wards. This was followed by cultural program by the children showcasing their inherent talent.
The Dance team performed @ AID Delhi's Birthday Celebration 25th Jan '09
An innocent request came from the children that they wished to perform a proper dance program on stage well-dressed and trained that we felt honored to work towards getting it done. Thanks to the good hearted and active volunteer lot that we have at Prayas we found not one but two choreographers. Good Work - Sonika & Tarun. But we finalized with Apoorva who was from Tarun's office - Kritikal Solutions.
They trained for 2 full weeks with Apoorva & Tarun for close to 2 hrs everyday. The enthusiasm and happiness while watching them dancing has been an invaluable sight to us the past few days. All this peaked out when we finally saw them on stage performing. A small achievement by mere size of quantified action but one wish full-filled for many children.
Republic Day Celebrations with People of the Community on 26th Jan '09
'What is the next step?' is a question we have been asking in at least the past few months of debating and dinner discussions. Then finally it struck as if a bolt of lightning. And yes, it was a real bolt of lightning when Darshan jolted us all in a mail on the group after a failed survey.
The next step was to engage more actively with the parents and the community at large. For this we felt that 26th January – Republic Day, was the right day to work on this. Planned and executed with success, we had a good turn out of parents and other people from the community. A parallel survey captured details of at least 35 families in the vicinity.
The objective was to take our message - the need for education and support we could offer to them, in a representative way through programs by the children who we currently work with. There was an important hand of the parents of some children we work with to effect the entire event which was an achievement in pure qualitative measurements.
Prayas today has become successful in inspiring many families and children in the community to look forward to education & literacy as a means to getting their deserved rights and live a better life. We look forward to seeing the same in a much more amplified and focused effort from people much like you and me.
AID Prayas our (AID NOIDA Chapter) flagship project is an AID India supported community development project at Sector 16, NOIDA. We are in a process of engaging with the community through education to guide associated families towards a more value driven and quality life for themselves and their children.
