AID India - NOIDA Chapter : Volunteer Voices and More

About NUSHA , ROCKERs and AID-Noida bonding

2012-01-14T01:21:00.000-08:00

At AID-Noida our aim is not only to raise our children’s knowledge bar and make them ‘literate’ but also strive to give them enough exposure to see world differently.

As we volunteers always believe that the learning is mutual, and we learn more than what these children learn from us. A similar kind of feeling was expressed by a group of volunteers who came from Singapore and belonged to the University of Singapore.

An idea that was sown in 2010 and the credit cannot be given to anyone in particular. A volunteer from Nayi Disha- a school which happens to be a huge supporter of our initiative came to AID-Noida community center, with an idea to call people from NUS to India and specifically to AID-Noida community, as a part of their project of social work. A lot of brainstorming was done on how our community will react to this and what is their agenda to come here and so on and so forth. Talking to our students in Nayi Disha we realized that these people have already visited Nayi Disha in 2009 and was a great experience for them.
We then were convinced on this project and that’s how a strong relationship was formed between AID-Noida and Rockers-as they call themselves. A relationship which is just 2 years old yet is very strong and we know that no matter what happens, the rockers will always be remembered by our children.
We were bit apprehensive on how will they adjust to a community like this, but to our surprise, they gelled well. The way we embrace our children and love them, they did the same.
When the NUS group was leaving from India in 2010, I thought they won’t come back as they go to a country only once. But when in August 2011, Zawiah and Seha the prime movers for 2011 and ex-volunteers from 2010 batch approached again, I felt proud that our kids managed to bring them back, their love was that magnetic.
We all were looking forward to their project. This time there were girls as young as 18 years. They were an inspiration. They looked a bit scared and nervous at first. Their project started from 4th December till 17th December. Rockers always surprise and inspire us with the amount of homework they do before their trip. The kind of specific questions they have, amazed us. This time apart from children education, the attraction was their mini renovation which included graffiti and library. After that got completed, our classes looked much more vibrant and lively. There idea of teaching children is always unique and play way. They taught our kids dancing and singing. One of the most touching part this time was that they brought messages from children from Singapore for these children. Our kids did the same for them.

On the last day as always, there was huge flow of emotions. Kids didn’t want them to go and the Rockers didn’t want to leave themselves. They sung a song which really touched us all and the meaning of which was clearly understood by the children. The song was ‘you can count on me’- a wonderful song, which resulted in tears flowing from all the children, the AID-Noida volunteers and rockers.
The last day is always so emotional that the parents from the community come outside the class to see what has happened.
If I have to sum up the impact of the project, I can just say that it was an enriching experience for us, for them and for our children. The children came across a different culture, different people and different language. They enjoyed spending time with each other. Those 15 days were the unforgettable moments for Prayas and we witness a huge amount of positive energy amongst everybody. The way they love our children, help them learn things, learn from them and leave with tears in their eyes, makes me proud and happy that we have build strong relationships across borders.
We hope to see them next years as well with new set of students; new energy and new ideas but the love will be the same from both the ends.

Charu Garg

And the senior batch stands suspended

2011-11-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

Jaanbaaz, Guddu, and Umesh, boys from the senior batch; all boarded the local bus to school but did not attend the class that day. Instead they bunked the school for a day and went loafing. As expected a note arrived from their school teachers at their houses, through other students. These young boys got a good thrashing from parents, which obviously is to no avail most of the times. The volunteer body of AID-Noida was also informed of the mischief. Finally boys took one hour, in the meeting of students and volunteers, and managed to convince everybody that they had bunked classes to watch the movie “Ra One”. Linkan, Darshan, Anand, Soumitro, volleys present, approached the situation in a light manner, recollecting their teenage days of mischief. Darshan personally believes that parenting, is an art, and one should be fully aware of the circumstances when you have to acknowledge the high maturity level of your ward, and give respect to the young souls which they usually crave for. He candidly suggested boys to go for a show having economical rates on weekends, instead of wasting so much money on a weekday show!
But it was soon apparent that these boys were fooling with the volunteer body, and hadn’t watched the movie at all. Guddu’s mother updated that he was in a town called Haldwani, whereas Jaanbaaz and Umesh were loitering somewhere else. It was disheartening for all volunteers. Linkan says “We have not imparted them these values. At AID-Noida we follow zero tolerance policy towards physical violence against children. We have always made us available in any circumstances. Now we discover that our children are not comfortable with us, and are trying to hide the truth .I am disappointed here, and still trying to figure out where it went wrong!”
Reviewing the entire scenario the volunteer body at AID-Noida has decided to suspend the entire senior batch for a month. Students have been asked to go home and discuss amongst themselves the right and wrong in the situation and come up with a solution which they think might restore the volunteer body’s faith in their conduct.
Anand gupta, a veteran comments, “We have observed certain pattern of change in behavior of our eldest batch. This can certainly be attributed to their teenage. This is a very tender age, and needs extra thoughtfulness. It’s important to maintain the decorum and tell students where a line needs to be drawn. A stick has never helped and never will, as students might rebel and question the authority. It’s important that we challenge their morality. The only method to instill discipline would be to make students realize its importance.”
Jaanbaaz’s father, when asked to speak on the situation disclosed one of his well guarded fears. “One wise old man in my village advised me never to educate my children. He warned that my children would stop respecting me once they are highly educated and maybe even refuse to recognize me. I think he was right, I am sad at the conduct of my ward”. It is not a startling revelation that Jaanbaaz’s father is harboring such fears. It is a usual insecurity which any parent might face considering he is illiterate. But this often leaves one wondering, that education which should empower a society, actually infuses fear of disrespect. Or probably we need to understand and implement the difference between simple literacy and education.
Fretting over student’s progress and doting on them is essential part of mentoring. As one of the volunteers at AID-Noida mentioned, mentoring any child is like part time parenting. But it has its own set of perplexing challenges. While dealing with the hot blood of teenage, a mentor needs to carefully strike a balance between chumminess and strictness. Maybe a strict step would sort out the difficulties which are being faced by volunteers at AID-Noida.

Anvita Shukla

15 August, this year...

2011-09-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

Happiness has two faces, one which brings smile on your face and second which brings smile on other's face, eventually reflecting on your own. Friends, you all might have experienced the former quiet frequently, but the latter is indeed pretty rare and the one I had at the Independence Day celebrations at AID-Noida was a perfect match.
It was an eventful day. It rained quite heavily the other night, but that did no harm to the enthusiasm of the kids or the volunteers, not a bit. The only fear we all had was a leaky tent over our heads, as it drizzled prior to the performance and after the performance, but the program went far smoother than any of us had expected.
Children and volunteers were full of enthusiasm and I could see a dream floating in their eyes. The dream to do something big, for themselves, for their country. The performance presented by the kids did more than proving me right.
The confidence demonstrated by children like Jaabaaz, Kiran, Aamir, Juleikha, Gulaabi, Sajjad,Ajay ,and others, in each of the events like speech, skit dance or event management is really commendable. They could easily speak/perform in front of a crowd of 100+ people which was by no means an easy task.
The entire program was perfectly balanced in terms of content and duration. Every performance was targeted to impart some meaning to the audience. There were a couple of group songs, a couple of dance performances, a couple of plays and a couple of speech by the kids.
The one I liked personally was the play by means of which children were trying to make people aware that this is our country, it is our responsibility to take proper care of public resources and assist the government in every possible way. It was great to see such small kids understanding and communicating these values, who knows it might have changed many minds. It was written by our own volunteer Anvita and directed by our senior batch student Juleikha.
The other play, written by Soumitro and team, enacted by senior batch children, reiterated the importance of national unity over communal differences. The kids performed very well despite of the very little practice we had.
The climax was even better. The penultimate performance was presented by two little girls, both of them reading a poem each, describing a kid's perspective of education before and after having access to books, school and teachers. The poem written by Darshan was indeed very touching, left me thinking that we need such initiatives in every part of the country where education is not much valued.
The last performance was a group dance, which was more than being cherry on the pie. The dance, performed by Shaahid, Shahbaaz, Jaanbaaz, and our volunteer Linkan, was a call to the other kids and parents in the community to wake up and realize that education is our birthright and we all must get the opportunity to fulfill our dreams.
We also gave out small tokes on appreciations for children who have been consistently performing well in academics and have been regular to school. Children like Anju, Nisrat, Usha, Jiya, Dolly, Kiran and many others were awarded for their good performance.
Our teachers Jyoti ma’am and Kulvinder ma’am also came on stage to talk some wisdom for children. It was not just the kids and teachers, but parents also showed equal enthusiasm. Some of them even came out and spoke on the need of increased awareness and enthusiasms from the community.We were also lucky to have Mr Sanjeev, MD Calypto, present throughout the celebration. He appreciated our efforts and promised us for all possible support from his end for our organization

All in all, it was a memorable experience. I had a very nice time with the kids preparing for a skit that was presented on that day. The kids are good learners, friendly and it’s fun to be with them. I look forward to have more days like this at AID-Noida.

Neeraj

Restructuring and re-opening of classes

2011-07-03T20:56:00.001-07:00

It’s June, hot and dusty month, a beautiful time of the year. Yes indeed, because children are back in the community, and classes have reopened after the long lull. For the past two months, the children were far away from the hustle-bustle of the city. Most of them had gone to their villages and met their grand moms and grand dads. But now, once again, the community is bustling with kids.
Post reopening, there has been some restructuring of classes. First of all, responsibility of senior batch (2007) has been transferred from Prashant and me to Prateek and Darshan. Secondly, I have been given responsibility for the Eureka Batch (2008-2010). Initially, it did not appear to be a very big shift but last Saturday when I went to the class I realized that batch shifting is not that small a thing after all.
To begin with, I will miss teaching the Senior Batch. The batch consists of the eldest and the most responsible kids studying at AID NOIDA. Being the batch owner for past 6 months I had seen a lot : Aashmina performing very funny" tum paas aaye... badbu phelaye" skit, Jaanbaaz, Sajaad and Subi managing junior kids and wonderful sessions on volcanoes, water cycle, earthquakes and many others topics. The innocence, the inquisitive nature and the sparkling intelligence of the kids have spellbound me. In fact, I am personally attached to the senior batch.
So this time, I was a bit nervous, and anxious about the response I might get, when I entered the new class. Will children appreciate the change? Will they listen to me the way they pay attention to Anvita - Eureka Batch owner? What do I need to do to develop that trust? I am not being a paranoid. At Prayas we believe, one needs to connect with children to teach. It is the gradually developed bond of trust which lays the foundation of a healthy student-teacher relationship. I had developed that bond with the senior kids. It took me time though, but slowly and steadily I was able to connect with them. Janbaaz, Sajjad, Subi, deepak, Danista, Julekha, each one of them had specific behaviour patterns and I knew how they would react to various situations.

Anvita arrived early and informed kids about the change. Result: - moment I entered the class Jainab said:"sir hum aapse nahi padhenge, hum Anvita didi se he padhenge”. I sat down, aware of big, inquisitive, confused and baffled eyes quietly observing me and wondering “who is this new guy?” I just maintained a broad grin on my face remembering what someone had said "A smile can go a long way".
We began with formal intro. Children told us their name and their current schools. Most of them were a bit jittery, scratching their heads and speaking in barely audible voice but they still looked super cute. Majority of Eureka batch is girls. The benefit with girls is that they do not create a ruckus like boys do. Upon my turn, I introduced myself to kids and asked them about their summer vacations. Everybody had an interesting story. If some of them just talked about the good time they had with their grand dad, grand mom and other relatives, others told us how they won a cricket tournament in their village!
I met some wonderful kids during the session: Jainab, Quaish, Gudiya and Gia. Quaish in particular, is a very inquisitive fellow. He wants to know new things and tries very hard to grasp everything that is said in the class. When in doubt, he asks most basic of questions without any inhibition. It is these instances that make me feel that we can learn a lot from the kids. We take too many things for granted because we know them now. But we forget the time when we did not know much. For e.g: we all know how to tell time on a Wall clock. Try teaching this to a kid. You will use angles, table of five and clock diagrams to teach them the very basic of all things: Telling time. To summarize, the fundamental concepts are brick walls which need the reinforcement of mortar named “teacher” to build a castle we know as “An Educated Adult”.
This time, the kids are even younger with easy to mould habits and personalities in my batch. We need to tread carefully, one kid at a time, because in a very short time the mould will harden and habits crystallize. We at AID Noida have to make sure that no cracks or air pockets go unnoticed. Let us see how it goes.

Following is the schedule of classes that we would be following from now onwards :-
Academics Classes
Sachin and Fresher Batch: Jyoti Madam
Time: 5.30PM-7.30PM
Days: Monday-Friday

Eureka Batch: Kulwinder Madam
Time: 10.00AM-12.00 (till summer vacations)
Days: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

Senior Batch: Kulwinder Madam
Time: 10.00AM-12.00 (till summer vacations)
Days: Wednesday

WEEKEND CLASSES (by Volunteers)
Senior Batch (Academic class): Prateek, Darshan
Time :6.00PM-8.00PM
Day: Saturday

Eureka Batch (Activity class): Himanshu, Prashant and Nakul
Time: 5.00PM-7.00PM
Day: Saturday

Sachin Batch and Fresher Batch (Activity Class): Anvita, Raj
Time: 5.00PM-7.00PM
Day Sunday
Just to remind you all that the weekday classes for senior batches have been reduced to one which is on Wednesday to be taken by Kulwinder Madam. And one academic class will be taken by concerned volunteers on Saturdays.

Himanshu Singh

As I Experienced it!

2011-05-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

We do not invent the wheel every day. But I can at least request you to come and experience AID NOIDA.
I joined AID NOIDA in December 2009, and like a typical overenthusiastic volunteer ran out of steam in a couple of months. But when I came back after 6 months, kids still remembered my name!!! They asked me why had I stopped coming. I knew the answer but was too guilty to admit: I had been plain and simple complacent. That magical moment sealed my relationship with AID.

Do you know which country has the largest illiterate population in the world? It is India. We have an adult literacy rate of mere 66% and child literacy rate of 82%. One might argue that 82% is not that bad but dear friends let me inform you that the world average is around 88%. We are way behind the world standards. On one hand we boast of being the second fastest growing economy in the world and on the other hand we allow this demon of illiteracy to devour our young generations. What should we do? Sit back and relax? Wait for the tiring Right to Education Act, Mid Day Meal scheme and Sarva Shikha Abhiyan to make an impact or should we rise up, take responsibility and try to create a difference through our efforts.

AID Noida is one such education initiative that aims to create a difference and bring a change in our society. AID Noida is an attempt by young working professional to develop a sustainable education model which instils the importance of education among the residents of the Noida slum community.
The model is based on a three step process, each of which aims to develop a self sustainable system.

Step 1:
If the kids do not go to school, bring education to the kids.
Most of the kids in the community do not go to school or drop out because of lack of good government education system. Government schools do not motivate kids to perform well in schools and do not take responsibility for poor academic performance. This unaccountability seriously decreases the learning intent of the kids and forces them to drop out. Smart young souls with huge potential lose their way in the anarchic maze of our education system. Why wouldn’t they? After all, we all need guidance at some point in our lives. In fact, we need it most when we are naive, when we are susceptible, when we are young. AID- Noida provides that guidance which helps in decreasing the school dropout rate. We take up classes on weekdays which cater to primary school subjects such as English, Hindi, Maths, Social studies and Science. The classes aim to develop basic understanding of Science, English, Hindi and other subjects among the kids. But as all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; we organize activity classes on the weekends to develop the kids' creative side. In weekend classes, kids participate in plays, sing songs, play games, identify countries on the globe and learn about earthquakes, volcanoes, rains and lot more. In summary, AID- NOIDA aims to make education fun and enjoyable. But, is this a sustainable model? Without formal education, kids will not progress beyond a limit. They need degrees and diplomas to make it big in life. The next step addresses exactly this issue.

Step 2: Formal education
Once kids develop interest in education, the next step is to ensure their admissions to recognized schools. Prayas Noida volunteers visit various schools in Noida such as Nayi disha, OM foundation and others. They persuade the school management to organize entrance tests and if kids do well admit them with full scholarship. Many of our bright students have got admitted in good schools and are performing really well. For instance, Jaanbaaz, one of our students, has scored 74 out of 75 in mathematics. Just imagine a kid from an underprivileged sector, whose family barely make its ends meet is performing so well in school. AID NOIDA was recently able to admit 4 more students of the junior batch to OM foundation public school.
But again, is this enough? Is this approach sustainable? No it is not. Because AID NOIDA will not be there with the kids forever. In that case, who will encourage them and keep a track of their performance? I know the answer.... It is the parents and more specifically the mothers. Here comes step 3.

Step 3: Educate the women.
Women are the foundation of every society. If the women of the house are educated, it is guaranteed that the children will be educated. Prayas organizes weekend classes for women with an aim of imparting basic education. The women learn basic mathematics so as to keep a track of their house hold expenses. They learn to read and write. Now the community women can write their name instead of using the ubiquitous thumb as a sign of their identity. They manage the family grocery store and maintain the accounts independently as their men go to work. All these small changes have empowered the community women. Now, the women are not just fringe players in their family, they have a voice and an opinion. Moreover, Women have realized the importance of education as they have seen the difference it makes. Hence, they want their kids to be educated. The women keep a tab on the kid's school performance by checking performance reports, meeting school teachers and ensuring that kids finish their homework.

Now, we have a sustainable system in place. A system that thrives on itself: Young children hungry for education - good school system- Parental support that ensures continuity. So friends this is what AID NOIDA does, but what will you do? Most of you were lucky to be born in affluent families. You and in fact I, did not have to worry about the basic necessities of life. We just had them all around us. But look around, there are lot more people who do not have this privilege. Therefore, it is our responsibility to share the gift of knowledge with others. We can take some time out of our lives, not much, just 2-3 hours a week and share our knowledge with the underprivileged. I do not expect you to just come and start changing the world. After all, we are bunch of cheerful young people who are trying to make a difference through education because we believe Education is not a privilege, it is a necessity.

Himanshu Singh

Updates from Vision brainstorming rooms

2011-04-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Off late, the community center in Prayas has been bustling with various meetings and discussions. We are heading to restructuring and reorganizing our volunteer setup, and also working on infusing it with fresh energy and new ideas.
The mass arising in community towards child education has been a heartening development and it has also thrown some fresh challenges towards our volunteers. This 26 January it rained enrollments on our counter! The initial battle of changing the mindset and making urban slum dwellers realize the value of education has been achieved! But in the process it also requires us volunteers to look for a new goal to achieve. A completely new vision, diversifying from the field of child education. At AID we believe that all problems are interconnected. To build a sound relation with community members, child education is mostly a soft target. It helps us to enter into the community and understand the core problems and get access to faith of community dwellers. As one of the fellow AIDer Prasanna rightly says: - We cannot be mopping the floor all the time, we need to repair the tap, for once and all. Repairing the tap means diving to the core of the issues of social concerns and working on it.
The restructuring of volunteer setup is almost complete with distributing volunteers into various teams of their choice:-

Recently we have realized that galvanizing community volunteers with new and more responsibilities in our movement would be the best way to set equilibrium in the movement and gradually widespread it.
We have included 5 children from our senior batch, which we have been mentoring and coaching from past three years, in the core committee. Gradually we intend to invite more community participation.
Also we have reshuffled our classes to accommodate our latest batch, which was enrolled on 26th Jan 2011. As we have only two teachers, the introduction of junior most batches requires us to reconsider the allotment of teachers across different batches.
To resolve the resource crunch, it was decided that academic classes of senior most batch during the weekdays should be replaced by academic classes for “Sachin” Batch (The euphoria of winning the world cup this year has made us name this new batch after the Legend “Sachin” himself :o)) . This change does not mean that senior most batch will not have academic classes at all. There will be one class during weekdays (on Wednesday) which will be taken by teachers and two academic classes on weekends which will be taken by volunteers.
Now, this reshuffling will also impact the activity classes for Senior, Eureka and Junior Batches. In the meeting it was decided that activity classes for senior batch can be organized fortnightly (during the time slot for academic classes). Furthermore, activity classes of Eureka & Junior batch will be merged together.
All the changes were made keeping in mind the need to focus more on academics for Senior Batch and to facilitate maximum interaction with the Sachin Batch.
The final “proposed” schedule of classes along with volunteer distribution is as follows:
Senior Batch – Academic – Prateek & Darshan
Eureka + Junior - Activity – Prashant & Himanshu
Fresher Batch – Activity – Nakul & Charu
Sachin Batch – Activity – Anvita & Raj

We hope to continue this process of shuffling and restructuring, till we come up with a vision for our organization.
Getting ready to scale more heights!!!!

Anvita Shukla

AID Prayas.Heading towards Next Generation

2011-03-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

As we all believe that a self sustained independent system should be created in the community so that we can focus on the bigger picture. A small initiative taken by Prashant, Nakul, Prateek and Himanshu in the activity class could mark the beginning of the same.

Introducing a new pedagogy in last two activity classes at AID-Prayas. In the class held on 5^thMarch, 2011 the senior and the Eureka batch was combined in the activity class. The class was then divided into 11 groups. Each group had one student from senior batch and one student from Eureka batch. The groups were initially formed randomly but teams were changed in such a manner that least compatible students should form a team. Teams were then given half an hour’s time to prepare any performance. It could be any dance, music, speech, song, act, concept explanation anything from this entire universe. The only rule was that both the team members should be equally involved.

Names	Total Marks (*/40)	Rank	Activity Performed
Sakib – Asmeena	34	1^st	Comedy Act
Danishta – Aftab	31		Dance
Sona – Ruby	29		Patriotic Song
Subi – Shahbaz	17		Aim of Life (lakshya)
Julekha – Parveena	27		Explanation of working of a volcano
Jaanbaaz – Seefat	33	2^nd	Bal Vivah
Lucky – Sajda	25		National Anthem
Sajjad – Hapsa	25		Poem
Deepak – Dolly	29		Comedy act
Shahid – Sonu	33	2^nd	Poem
Gulabi – Jainav	29		Conversation related to school

*the marks given are the sum of mark given by four volunteers out of 10, each.

The next activity class took a step ahead. The class on similar pattern was conducted but this time it was conducted by Sona and Jabaaz. All volunteers silently observed the class and the complete class was taken by them. From initiating the concept to team making, query resolving, maintaining discipline in the class, taking individual care and all others aspect were taken care of by them very well. Their first step in the shoes of teacher went very good. If they continue to take such activity classes, may be initially under the volunteer’s guidance then soon, believe they’ll be ready to replace couple of volunteers. Its a happy news to share this with all of you. Ah! Forgot to mention that students review, of them as a teacher, was also very good. They were happy to see Sona and Janbaaz as their teachers and accepted them with an open mind. Merely not an observation but views expressed by children from both the batches.

The purpose of doing so was:

Seniors, besides learning for self must also learn to pass on the knowledge they have. A skill required by any and all individual in different stages of life and in different forms.
They should have a feeling of responsibility to give back to their own society, which we expect them to do in near future. For them to become role models and future volunteers it is important (as we feel) for them to feel the importance of the same.
For juniors, it was important to accept learning and knowledge from various sources other than teachers, Parents and volunteers, who they see as no less than parents.

Further, in future we see to give opportunity to different rather all students from senior batch to step into these shoes and be a support to Prayas.

Appreciative Initiatory by Prashant, Nakul, Prateek and himanshu without whom this would never have taken the shape.

Request to friends and seniors at Prayas to contribute their ideas in context of the above mentioned.

26 जनवरी .. ek alag subah

2011-02-21T04:11:00.000-08:00

सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाज़ू-ए-क़ातिल में है
वक़्त आने पर बता देंगे तुझे, ए आसमान,
हम अभी से क्या बताएँ क्या हमारे दिल में है!
राम प्रसाद बिस्मिल के आज से करीब 92 साल पहले लिखी उर्दू की ये कविता आज भी हमारे दिल में देश भक्ति की भावना से भर उठता है.बचपन से इन पंक्तियों को हमने 26 जनवरी / 15 अगस्त पर सुना है.26 जनवरी , गणतंत्र दिवस का नाम सुनते ही हमारे मन में हमारा बचपन flashback में चला जाता है. वो स्वादिष्ट लड्डू, दूर दर्शन पर आती गणतत्र दिवस परेड, साफ़ सुथेरी,इस्त्री करी स्कूल की ड्रेस पहन कर दुल्हन की तरह सजे हुए स्कूल में जाना , स्कूल में बजते देश भक्ति के गाने , स्कूल मैंदान की मिटटी की सौंधी खुशबू और तिरंगे को सलामी देने के लिये गर्व से उचा होता सर.दिल में एक हूक से उद्थ्ती है.पिछले 4 -5 सालों से हम AID प्रयास में इन्ही लम्हों को नए सिरे से ताज़ा करते आयें हैं.हर साल की तरह इस साल भी प्रयास के सभी batch के बच्चे, २६ जनवरी को लेकर काफी उत्साहित थे . कई दिनों की मेहनत को आज उन्ही झुग्गी झोपडी के लोगो के सामने दिखने का मौका था, जो उन्हें केवल कूड़ा उठने के लायक समझते हैं.यह दिन था , अपने दीदी - सरजी की आशायों पर खरा उतने का.इस साल एंकरिंग का दारोमदार था , हमारी चहेती चारू दीदी , नकुल भईया , प्रयास के ही प्रतिभावान बच्चे सीफत और जाबाज़ का, जिसको सभी ने बखूबी निभाया.
सीफत और जाबाज़ के आत्मविश्वास को देख कर, प्रयास की सार्थकता और सफलता पर गर्व महसूस होता हैं .इन बच्चो की आगे बढ़ने , कुछ कर दिखाने की जो ललक है वह तारीफे काबिल है .सभी कार्यकर्म चाहे वह नन्हा मुन्ना सिपाहियों का गाना , Senior batch के लडको और लड़कियों का ग्रुप डांस.सभी में बच्चो की जी तोड़ मेहनत और लगन दिख रही थी.Senior Batch की जुलेखा का अंगरेजी में भाषण को सभी ने सराहा.विशिष्ट अतिथियों में उपस्थित थे नयी दिशा की प्रिंसिपल मैडम, OM foundation से संजय सर और सुनीता मैडम. प्रिंसिपल मैडम और संजय सर की उपस्तिथि ने सारे बच्चो में उत्साह सा भर दिया था .बच्चो के साथ जो volunteer उनकी मदद करने के लिये रात दिन एक कर रहे थे उनकी मेहनत भी साफ़ झलक रही थी.बच्चो से जयादा वो नर्वस नज़र आ रहे थे.और हो भी क्यों नही , प्रयास में यही जिम्मदारी की भावना , एक परिवार की तरह मिल जुल कर काम करना, हम सब के आगे बढते रहने की प्रेरणा है.बच्चो ने एक नाटक भी प्रस्तुत किया , जो झुग्गी की रोज़ - मर्रा की परेशानियों पर रौशनी डालती है , चाहे वो स्कूल जाने मैं आने वाली परेशानी , ड्रॉप ओउट्स की परेशानी , लड़कियों को स्कूल न जा देने , बड़े लडको का जल्दी पैसे कमाने के लिये जुआ खेलना .इस नाटक को देख कर लगा , हमारे प्रयास , धीरे-धीरे ही सही हमारे प्रयास में रंग ला रहें हैं.एक चिड़िया , अनेक चिड़िया वाली प्रस्तुति ने तो जैसे बचपन की याद दिला दी.एक बात गौर करने लायक है, जब भी आप - हम पब्लिक के सामने आते हैं तो हम स्टेज फीयर के कारण नर्वस हो जाते हैं , लेकिन प्रयास के बच्चों को कोई डर नही , कोई स्टेज फीयर नही.आत्मविश्वास से और पूरे जोश के साथ अपना कार्यकर्म प्रस्तुत किया.
इन्ही बच्चों के आत्मविश्वास और लगन को देखा देखी अब तो बच्चो के मम्मी-पापा भी भाग लेने लगे हैं.मुफ्ती जी , जियाउल जी ने जो अपने बच्चो और खुद के परिवार में बदलाव महसूस किये , उन्होंने झुग्गी के लोगो को वो बताया.मुफ्ती जी ने एक घटना का जिक्र किया.उनके बच्चे आमिर और हफसा ने बातों ही बातों में बड़े होके एक के डॉक्टर और दूसरे के teacher बनने की बात तो जैसे मन को छु गयी.हमारा सबसे बड़ा अचिवेमेंट तो महिला कक्षा की महिलाओं द्वारा, अपना अनुभव झुग्गी के लोगो को बताना था.
नयी दिशा की प्रिंसिपल मैडम के झुग्गी - झोपडी के लोगो को अपने बच्चो पर ध्यान देने और उन्हें पड़ते रहने की जो शिक्षा दी थी , हमे आशा है की वो जरूर कारगर होगी.मैं प्रयास की तरफ से उन सभी volunteer को तहे दिल से शुक्रिया अदा करता हूँ , जिन्होंने प्रत्यक्ष या अप्रत्यक्ष रूप से इस कार्यक्रम को सफल बनाने में महत्त्वपूर्ण योगदान दिया!चारू ,लिंकन,नकुल,अन्विता, गौरव,अर्नव,प्रतीक, सुगंधा,श्वेता,प्रशांत,दर्शन,विकास,आनंद , विपिन,कविता सभी का बहुत बहुत शुक्रिया !!मैं प्रयास की तरफ से कनिका और शिवानी का भी शुर्कगुजार हूँ , जिन्होंने प्रयास के बच्चो को डांस सिखाने में कड़ी मेहनत की.हर बार की तरह हमारे रजत सर का भी धन्यवाद् , स्वादिस्ट लडूयों के लिये.हमारे प्रयास के teacher ज्योति मैडम और कुल्विन्दा मैडम को भी बहुत बहुत धन्यवाद्.आप दोनों के प्रयास व् मेहनत से ही , आज प्रयास के बच्चे अच्छे नम्बरों से पास हो रहे हैं.और कुछ बच्चे तो अपने कक्षा में प्रथम , द्वितीय भी आ रहे हैं.
इस बार का 26 जनवरी यादगार रहेगा , बच्चो के दिन प्रति दिन बढ़ते आत्मविश्वास , सभी volunteer के प्रयत्नों , और झुग्गी के सहयोग के लिये.
मेरे दोस्त हमेशा पूछते हैं क्या है प्रयास? प्रयास एक परिवार है, जिसमें हर एक volunteer एक सदस्य है, जिसमें हर एक का योगदान जरूरी है.सही मयोनो में प्रयास कुछ करने की इरादों को वास्तिविकता में बदलने का जरिया है.यह एक ऐसी कड़ी है जो बहुत सारे युवक - युवतियों को समाज के उन सब पहलुओं को हल करने के लिये जोडती है , जिनको हम हमेशा करने की सोचते हैं लेकिन हमेशा परिस्तियों या सरकार पर ड़ाल देते हैं.परेशानियां और अड़चन तो सभी के सामने आती हैं और हमेशा आती रहेंगी लेकिन कुछ करने का विश्वास हो तो सब कुछ हासिल किया जा सकता है.
किसी अनजाने कवी की ये पंक्तियाँ हमारा हमेशा मार्ग दर्शन करती रहेंगी ..
हाथो में हाथ लिये , चले यूही कांरवा अपनी है जमी , अपना हे आसमा आये गए गम , आई गयी ख़ुशी,मंजिल चाहे मुश्किल ही सही
आगे बढे , हाथो में हाथ लिए , यही है दुआअपनी है जमी , अपना है आसमा

Raj Bansal

Republic Day Celebrations

2011-01-22T06:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Sir/Ma'am
On Behalf of AID- Prayas Team, it gives me immense pleasure to invite you to bestow your prescence and be a part of our celebrations on 26th January 2011 in the community center, on the occassion of Republic day
Following is the schedule of events:-
1)Welcome speech
2) National Anthem
3) Prize distribution
4) Cultural Events
5) Experience sharing
6) Vote of thanks
Our team of volunteers and children has ceaselessly worked hard to make this event a success. Your prescence will act as a booster to our morale, so please do not forget to arrive on time and enjoy the Republic Day in a unique way!
Venue:- Sec 16 , Naya baans community center, Noida
Timings:- 01:00 pm -03:00 pm
With regards,
AID-Prayas team

Christmas Gift - A Day of Picnic with AID-Prayas kids

2011-01-05T03:41:00.000-08:00

If you were asked about specialty of 25th December of any year ,The elder remember it as "Christmas Day " and younger one for the "Santa" and his gifts .And here "AID-Prayas" kids got their "Christmas" Gift on 25th of Dec 2010 .

The Gift was indeed a day of "Fulltu Masti" as all were set to go for the Picnic.This is kind of a ritual now for last 5 years that kids go for picnic atleast once in a year,and this year it was on "Christmas Day" .

One thing amazes once you enter inside the Prayas community for any kind of celebration ,festival or for any gathering.The atmosphere becomes totally "colorful" & vibrant ,It becomes "Warm" with the enthusiasm of the little scholars and the presence of their mummy's holding hand of their kids.

Although Dec 25th was a foggy and chilled morning in Noida ,the excitement to have fun on picnic and warmth of enthusiasm of the kids & of "volunteers" made the morning truly Special & Warm.

Now the Senior kids have started to take little responsibility of the younger ones . Subi,Sona,Jaabaaz and Sajjad were counting the kids and making a list of all the kids who will join the picnic .Few mothers were requesting to take the younger kids(3-4 years old) for the picnic as well but strictly denied by the senior kids as instructed to them .

"Rajat" the incharge of the picnic,with "Charu" & "Linkan" were busy to call the always late volunteers :P and were trying to manage the gathering of more than 60 kids and many parents .Finally at 9 AM some 55 kids were listed to go and few were crying as they were denied to enter the picnic bus being ineligible in age criterion .But later due to their persistent resistance few were allowed and the number of kids reached 57 .

Almost 10-15 volunteers joined the group .With good speakers inside the bus and FM radio, volunteers & kids started to exhibit their Dancing skills learnt from the so famous Sheila & Munni :) . The "Garam Samosha" was distributed as breakfast of the day inside the bus only and thereafter this dancing journey reached "Humayun Tomb" .

Once you enter inside the main gate of the tomb the very first look of the tomb reminds you "The Taj" in red color .The Prayas family gathered for the "Big family Pic" and then everyone reached the "Humayun Tomb's" main building .As it was a public holiday so lots of other school kids were there for the picnic as well .We tried to gather all our kids so that we can give a small description of "Humayun" as a Mughal Emperor and about the tomb .

The very first look of many kids and few volunteers was "uff,again the Bhashan" :P ,fortunately it ended in a couple of minutes :) .The surprise of the day was "Santa Clause" distributing the chocolates to all the kids .Yes Prashant in the RED Santa dress and white beard were actually looking like a" Santa" thanks to his gr8 built :) . From the beautiful Humayun Tomb the "Caravan" reached the as usual lunch site i.e. The India Gate.The witness of Indian armed forces Valour ,Sacrifice and Triumph .

India Gate's open parks have always been the best "lunch destination" for the AID-Prayas family for long time .After reaching there all the kids were in their best mode of "Fun & Joy" .Different set of kids plus volunteers were enjoying different game of their choice .

Here comes the Lunch time when volunteers served the lunch to every kid thanks to Smita & ofcourse Rajat for the whole arrangement of nice food ,Senior kids again took the responsibility to serve the volunteers in the end and with that the entire group completed the lunch.

After lunch the games continued ,India Gate was full of kids that day mostly in school dresses.Around 4 PM we returned to our bus and started for Noida .This time Rajat was fully supported by other members while singing the one and only song "jihaale maski mukum baranjis" :) .

The dancing caravan reached Noida after the day of "Fulltu Masti" and as a ritual ,closing ceremony slogan i.e. "Bharat Mata ki Jai" :) were shouted 3 times with full of energy .

Apart from 57 kids there were approx 15 volunteers including Rajat,Charu,Linkan,Anant,Sugandha,Anuradha,Nakul,Arnav,Raj,Prashant,Prateek,Shweta,Himanshu ,Smita & Darshan.

The Santa gave a beautiful day as a gift to AID-Prayas family .

It was real good work of the group members to make this day "Beautiful" .

"Darshan"

Women Literacy Class "Meri Pehchaan"--First Milestone

2010-11-24T10:44:00.000-08:00

Women Literacy Class "Meri Pehchaan" is really going good and interesting too.
A Journey of 4 months...made us reach upto e first milestone......
[Here "SHE" means each woman in the class]

She was very silent and shy to join the class. She fought, she had arguements with her mother in law, sister in law and husband to attend the class. She burnt her curry on Chulha while writing her homework. The initial days started somewhere in this way. She had interest to read English and know how to write her name in English and Hindi. But she did not ask any time what does she want. She did not know what she want. She was not interested to hear me on the Women Empowerment. It was all rubbish for her.
Days passed with Letters in Hindi and English then came the days of Math countings and addition and deletion. She became regular and her interest was clear to read a news paper or do the calculation in her shop or do the signature at her workplace.
One day she came and told me " Didi ek baat kahun, apko dhanyawad mujhe sign karna sikhane k liye. Aaj jab maine apne company main tankhwa le rahi thi to maine sign kia aur mere supervisor ne kaha, are tumhe sign karna ata hai fir tumne angutha kyun lagaya pichle baar..? to maine kaha pehle nahin ata tha ab sikh gayi hoon aur is kagaj par kya likha hai wo bhi padh sakti hoon, to unhone sabasi di mujhe. "
One day I was telling a story and she said its my story I have never thought who I am always been the Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother of someone, I dint have my own Identification. I have never said to someone that my name is "------" and not "---- ki maa or ---- ki biwi"Though I do double of the work my husband do but always heard "Mere liye thode hi kar rahi hai, chod de kaam".
She asked me Didi why dont we get the recognition at this age, why dont we have our own identification? What can we do on our own either we dont have scope or we dont have permission???
I had no answer for these questions...So still searching on....
Now she shares her personal and health problems too.. She asks to teach how save money...
She waits for the Saturday n Sunday now....to see the beautiful "akshars" on board.

Annual Day at Om Foundation

2010-11-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

A great day it was.. It was the day of Annual Function at Om Foundation School. Both the students and teachers were very excited. Started with the Saraswati Vandana, and then samll kids performances and then play and dance and Instrumental play and speech and prize distribution. The unique thing marked was the participation of each and every student in the school.

The students from AID-Prayas tooo participated in many programs. The cute little Abju was just looking like a fairy in Pink Frock. Usha was nowhere from looking like a girl. Ajay as usual cute n smiley. Hridaya was filled was so much happiness like he has got something very precious in his life. Jia was looking pretty with her smiley dance.

The other student of Om Foundation like the Drummer was an allrounder in studies games and music and dance...Eyes were filled with tears of happiness that the kids are in a safe hand. Their future will be brightened by the wonderfull teachers and mentors.

Finally the "Pakodey" time was started and as usual a nice taste from the kitchen of Om Foundation.

Bal Sabha: An Experience sharing by a volunteer

2010-09-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

On a Sunday evening away from the glistening weekend in a upward metro city I spend some time with children singing and dancing enacting and screaming in a beautifully decorated and tidy room with their Banner flashing "Teacher's DAy Balsabha" inside the lanes of a marganilized community right at the heart of the same city. Its pleasing to see the self confidence build up in these children and it reinstates the faith that giving right and equal opportunities to children from impoverished socio-economic communities gives them the platform to lead a diginified life and they are very much at par with the children from privileged segments of society its just the difference of economics here.

The childrens program was well planned and their performances were amazing. The play which depicts the importance of education in life and linking it to exploitation in the hands of contractors and middle man was a very well thought idea by the children and shows their power to connect to problems surrounding their lives.The flavours of their songs, dances and their surprises for us were a fun filled moment to cherish.

A welcoming Gesture from their families who invited us for "aftaar" - the evening feast on the holy month of fasting during Ramadan was delightining too. The way their families give due importance to education of their children as an essential part of their up bringing is surely laudable. Its mainly the financial circumstances of these families that they cannot afford to provide good school education to their children. When this small gap between their desire for their kids education and their own constraints seems impossible for them to fulfil that social groups like Prayas help to bridge those gaps.And the difference is reflected in the lives of the children and their families.

Such was an afternoon of seeing human hands carying for innocent lives.

Akanksha

Schedule of the classes

2010-09-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just to update everyone about the schedule of the classes, and the respective class owners. New volunteers can look for volunteering opportunities at any of the aspects.

Senior batch

Owner: Nakul( 9810722449)

Teacher: Kulwinder Madam

Days: Monday- Friday

Timing: 3.30- 5.30 PM

Eureka Batch

Owner: Charu (9958363035)

Teacher: Kulwinder madam

Days: Monday- Friday

Timing: 3.30 PM- 5.30 PM

Junior Batch

Owner: Anvita( 9971546756)

Teacher: Jyoti Madam

Days: Monday- Friday

Timing: 5.30-7.30PM

Fresher Batch

Owner: Charu(9958363035)

Teacher: Jyoti Madam

Days: Monday-Friday

Timing: 5.30-7.30PM

ACTIVITY CLASSES

Senior and Eureka Batch

Days: Saturday and Sunday

Volunteers: Nakul, Charu, Arnav

Timing: 5-7 PM

Junior and Fresher Batch

Days: Sunday
Volunteers: Anvita and Garima

Timing: 5.30-7 PM

Women's classes

Owner: Linkan(9971150656)

Days: Saturday and Sunday

Timing: 6.30-7.30PM

Govt. School Library Initiative

Owner: Anand(9868883583)

Nitka(9999233133)

Days: Saturday

Timing: 8.00-9.30AM

Nuturing Independence this Independece day.

2010-08-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

In the past, each year I used to celebrate Independence Day either at my school or at home watching parade on T.V listening to Patriotic bollywood movie songs. This Year Independence Day was different because I came out of my comfort zone to celebrate it with kids from Naya bans Basti.

I walked through a small alley towards a group of people where I saw three categories of people. First the kids who were holding tricolour Flags waving them proudly, second the proud parents who were looking at their kids and third a group of volunteers who were organising things in the background.

A small tent was erected in front of the one room school building which was decked with tricolours and other student made ornaments. The decoration was done by the kids themselves.

The volunteers most of them working professional have worked for past 5 years to bring the kids to the school and that showed in the way kids mingled up comfortably with them. As soon as I appear on the scene I was surrounded by kids eager to know my name while some of them just hugged me.

The programme started with national song “Jan Gan Man” with everyone joining the Chorus. This was followed by Saraswati Vandana and many other patriotic songs. It’s rare to see all children actively participating in stage performances but I saw, for each item a different set of students were on the stage even for compering each time a new smiling face came up. This left me wondering about the amount of effort that had gone behind it.

As the programme proceeded I was astonished to hear English Patriotic songs sung by students. They were as confident as singing if it is in their mother tongue. For next hour and half this colourful music continued to fill the air through the borrowed Masjid PA system.

After that it was the prize distribution ceremony where outstanding students were rewarded and there were also awards for overall personality improvement. The award ceremony ended with Chief Guest who was a Principal of Nai Disha(one of the school where these kids study) highlighting the importance of education.

The next phase was the most touching part of the whole event. A few parents were invited to speak about how their kids have improved since they have joined the school. One of them explained how he was critical about sending his girl to the school and now how proud he is, when his girl stood first in the class. There was another who said that his daughter was not able to speak to anyone and now after a year of schooling she is very confident and even speaks with visiting officer which even her parents fear to do. The third lady came to tears while thanking the volunteers for providing the opportunity to her kids which otherwise would have been impossible.

While being an eyewitness to the whole event, at the back of my mind I was thinking that this is what Independence means to people which most of us take for granted. These kids will remember this Independence Day and many more to come as steps towards their independence.

Then came the sweet distribution part where I assumed the responsibility of distributing Ladoos(Since this was kind of thing that can be done without preparation). I saw faces lit up when I handed laddoo’s to the kids and a beautiful smile crossed each lips in the anticipation.

It’s been a long time since I have sung “Jan gun Man” and other patriotic songs in loud voice. This experience jolted lots of childhood memories within and evoked patriotic feelings. This truly was a different Independence day that I have celebrated till now.

Gurinder

2010-08-13T01:51:00.000-07:00

Desh ki aazaadi ne di humein
Azadi har sawal ko suljhane ki
Azadi niraksharta k andhere ko mitane ki
Azadi rang,jaat,dharm k bhed bhao ko hatane ki
Ae desh tujhe naman..

Freedom gave us wing to fly and make our dreams come true ,freedom gave us rights to enlighten our nation with the light of education and awareness. Thanks to all the martyrs of our motherland to give us life of freedom. We the AID-Prayas family cordially invite you on the eve of Independence Day celebration on 15th August 2010

Venue : - AID-Prayas new center Nayabans, Sector 16, NOIDA.Timing : - 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm.

We would allow you a glimpse of the events we would be celebrating on Independence Day at AID-PRAYAS:-

Welcoming by Kids
National Anthem
I – Day introduction speech
Prize Distribution
Patriotic songs
Poem recitation
Cultural Song
Saraswati Vandana
Theme based Play
Experience sharing by Parents & honourable Guests
Vote of Thanks
Refreshment(Laddoos)

We invite u to join us on Sunday Aug 15th @ New Center, Sector 16, NOIDA for Independence Day celebration at AID-Prayas.

Warm Regards,
Prayas Team

2010-06-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Teach a woman , teach a family

Blue Haze…
The night looms larger
As she lights the chulha
The daily chores as always , remain pending..
She an ordinary housewife, her husband a farmer..

Blue haze settles down in a full moon light,
She oils the lamp, looking out for the glimpse of the retreating husband, If she might..
She briskly tidies the cosy little house
Shooing away a scurrying mouse!

Her husband returns exhausted from all day’s labour
Washes hands and sits down for a meal to savour..
She has already put her little children to sleep.
The husband quietly takes a peep!!
The day is done, another life’s battle won.

She quickly finishes her food,
Humming a folk song or two..
She is an ordinary woman but has no time to brood..
Life has set a challenge, she has accepted it too!

She quietly opens the box of steel
To take out a slate and few battered notebooks, sharpens her pencils
Strong and independent, that’s what they make her feel

She has to attend a night school
She hurries and crosses the village’s pool

This is a woman who knows her value,
Unlike celebs, and painted faced women,
She doesn’t bigmouths women’s liberty
Content with her life , taking it all as good omen
But she sails thru life, merrily past the Blue Haze,
It thins as she cuts across it , a farmer’s wife!
This lovely life and her small world shine through her face

AID- Prayas female literacy classes finally managed to come out of the gestation period, all thanks to the efforts of Linkan Subudhi and Charu. But why female literacy only? Because its mothers who transform a house into a home! The community has realized the value of education, from the flourishing changes in their children who attend quality schools. You enter the community, and often women approach you -- “ मैडम जी हमारे बच्चे को ले लो अपनी क्लास में... इसको पढ़ना बहुत अच्छा लगता है “ .. It is often heartening to see this rise in awareness level. So the Prayas team finally decided to harness the awareness by targeting the females within the community. After ladies in the community displayed interest in family planning sessions, our team came up with the female literacy classes. The name “ Meri pehchaan” was thought of by women from within the community . Ulterior reasons for these classes were to increase the faith in education, to target dedicated families, to empower females. Teenage girls cannot attend schools due to social stigmas, few women who have already passed the age of learning, but still brim with eagerness, will be facilitated by these classes. The classes kick started with 100% attendance. Nagma, one of our students in these classes signed the application proudly saying, now she can write her name! Prayas volunteers dream of the day, when the community will rise, realize and become self sustainable.
Lately Prayas volunteers like Pulkit, Aakanksha are getting involved into numerous other activities apart from quality education, like health front, less smoke chulhas. With varied efforts from our volunteers, there seems to be a lot of buzz in and around AID-Prayas.
We have also come up with our new centers within the community, and have begun with our intervention in the Govt School. A small quiz/play session was organized by volunteers like Nitka, Darshan, Anuradha, for students of the govt school to get an insight into the level of children IQ in the school. We thought upon the possibilities of utilizing the new laid out Right to Education in our framework, and going by it, we would be intervening to standardize the library in the Govt School.
Learning from the past, looking ahead

Anvita Shukla

क्या तुझे पता है की हम गणतन्त्र दिवस क्यू मनाते है?

2010-01-26T21:35:00.000-08:00

We do not find opportunities to celebrate; it’s just that the right reasons and right people collided for yet another eventful afternoon, on 26 Jan 2010.
Prayas’ new centre had been bustling with activity from past two three weeks. Reason being the approaching republic day, and we had planned a small celebration within the community for the same. The focus idea was to reach out to more people in the community, and also giving the community members an insight to the growth of the child, post enrollment in Prayas. The show was hosted and presented by the children themselves. From patriotic songs to one act plays, to individual speech, we had it all. Where the evergreen patriotic songs talked about the efforts of freedom fighters, the mono act plays talked about the reason why we celebrate the republic day, and highlighted a very essential issue of “Child marriage”. It has been the because of the combined efforts of children and volunteers that we have been able to come up with a pool of students, impeccably clean, and are able to face the crowd and stage, and talk in English.
Our children always work as a catalyst for our spirits. Seeing them putting extra hours after the regular school hours, to prepare for the Republic Day celebrations made us work with all the more zeal! No wonder our teacher Mrs. Khare could not deny children to join the choir and sing (though those extra kids had not prepared for the song, just heard and memorized them watching the elders in their batch perform!!). Seefat and Parveena almost knocked off the microphone, thanks to their enthusiasm. A few of the elder children came up with their 3 year old experiences related to Prayas. Since this time almost every event was put up by children, so we had few of our budding speakers coming up with their experiences. And the surprise package was Julekha’s impromptu speech! From a hesitating dull child, to a bright student, a beautiful girl, and a super enthusiastic and a confident kid, the transformation was something which made a few reach out for their handkerchief. And none of the children seemed to have the thing called “stage phobia”, which makes several grownups shudder at least once while holding the microphone. I believe these transformations are the results which have been desired for long by dedicated AID – Prayas team.
Two children were picked up from each of the three batches to reward for their energy, efforts, regular attendance, cleanliness, and academics performance. The names of these children are Sajjad, Soobi, Gulsed, Gudiya, Parveena and Sonu. Needless to mention that the tradition of “laddoo” and banana distribution was also a part of the celebration. We had parents flocking in for enrollments after the function. Anuradha took care of all enrollments.
The volunteer team is working on making the I-card for every child enrolled in the center. We have also diversified our efforts, by organizing a family planning session. Linkan, Charu, Aakanksha, Darshan, our new teacher Mrs Jyoti Khare, and Nakul, all these people worked tirelessly to make this event a success.
More to go, more to explore, and more to conquer.

Jai Hind!!

Anvita Shukla

Small is sublime!

2010-01-12T04:38:00.000-08:00

The family planning awareness session we conducted last Sunday witnessed an encouraging participation from the community. We would only know whether or not it was a success in the months to come, if we execute the follow-up plans. Nevertheless, 35+ women opened up about their issues in front of the lady doctor (it was rather disappointing on the male side), and many even expressed keen interest in availing contraceptives and other birth control measures. This time, the two doctors were arranged via NGO Noida Lok Manch, but we continue to stress on exploiting the existing govt channels, through which we earlier managed a clean-up drive. Here are some concerns raised during the interaction, each followed by how the doc tried to counter it (courtesy: Linkan's notes):

1. Women are powerless, and have little say in determining the number of their own children. Husbands taunts them questioning why they have an issue with more kids if the men have none in raising them.
A: It's a tough ask, but women to have to assert themselves more. Silent obedience may avert a short term tussle, but will ensure lasting pain for the individual and her kids.

2. Patriarchy: The family continues producing children until a boy is born.
A: Girls are usually more caring and likely to look after them in their times of trouble. Also, we need to identify girls who can be projected as role models from the community and drive home the point that girls are equally, if not more, likely to make a parent proud.

3. Religious blindfolds: Getting operated is not 'permitted'.
A: This is a misinterpretation. Every religion encourages kids only to the extent that enables you to ensure a quality life - not mere survival - for each of them.

4. The human resources argument: The more, the merrier
A: She cited the story of Pandavas and Kauravas to convey that it's logical thinking and hard work that take you far in life, not the number of kids. Another obvious counter is that parents have an undeniable responsibility to provide good upbringing to their kids, and that's nearly impossible with more than two children, given their limited monetary and other resources.

5. Having more sons is sometimes correlated with more strength, in the sense that the women of such families are less likely to be teased/molested.
A: In today's world, physical strength counts for nothing. It's all about your skills and values.

Action items going forward:

Follow up individually with the list of women who came forward, esp. those that sought birth control means. Pick and take along a female representative from the community.
Identify a role model (small-is-prosperous type) family from the community and showcase it in our informal interactions as well as events starting with Jan 26.
Identify girls who can be projected as role models from the community, to turn people's opinion on girl children around.
Investigate the possibility of monthly meetings of women with some of our female volunteers, so that they have a forum to voice their worries, including those on family planning.
Since the prominent causes of large family sizes are cultural (as opposed to medical), explore a session by an activist, incorporating other gender issues too.

- Pulkit [Blog: Let's spoil Nero's party!, Gmail: pulkitparikh]

Prayas Activity classes: - An experience you can not forget

2009-12-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

Prayas Activity classes

In those initial days in Prayas, when the Activity Class was started, I used to just sit and watch the kids. I was trying to read them and think on what they would be thinking. Over the week they have to go through the books and copies for their studies. This was a great initiative to refrain them from the load of bookworms crawling in their mind whole week. This class was started for the senior kids. We started teaching them in a playing mode which gave them lots of lessons and bring out their creativity.
Few important rules for kids’ n volunteers in this class are:
1. Nails should be cut.
2. Should take bath daily.
3. Should come to the class with combed hair.
4. Should put less oil on hair.
5. Hair should be clean and lice free.

On our first day we designed a Name Tag: All the kids were given a plain white paper. They were given to draw anything they like on that paper and write their names in the middle in big fonts. Even we designed our name tags with the kids.

Then we learnt how to maintain hygienic habits and maintain cleanliness in order to stay healthy. During summers, how to take care to avoid skin diseases and rainy days we learnt how to keep ourselves and our houses clean. And when winters came we learnt how to stay away from cold and flu.

We saw animation movie on digestive system, Solar system, Bones. The animated sounds of chewing food, passing through the food pipes and going through the intestines was a nice journey. Lines in book looks good but when a story or movie goes on, it leaves a deep impression and impact on mind. We never remember what we read in book but we do remember what we saw in a film. Similarly when we had a journey through our 9 planets and the galaxy, the sky was not far beyond us.

We had a card designing class for Father’s day celebration. This was a really wonderful session, though my card was very inferior in front of kids’ ones. Their feelings came out in the language of colors.
We learnt how to design cards and bookmarks and we also painted diyas on diwali. Diyas were distributed among the kids to decorate on the eve of diwali and enlighten them.

After a lot shout n study and play we had our Yoga session. This helped us to control our nerves system and get some moments of peace.
We had painting competition among the kids. We all painted our thoughts on the paper. Child artists were really great. When line of thoughts were drawn on the paper the color of dreams were spread out.
We also learnt what is computer what was the history of computer and how does it work and how to draw and paint in computer.

We then thought of adding a surprise visit to kid’s home for a relation built up n interaction session with the parent for each kid. We visited and discussed on their good works and complaints.

We learnt how to give speech and how to stand bold and straight in front of audience in our personality development session.

Within a period of 8 months after crossing a milestone for senior kids, now this session is also taken for Eureka and Fresher’s batch.
For The Eureka batch and fresher’s batch we do play enacting while reading stories and extracurricular activities as done for senior kids. We also did face painting for them.

This can be called as a “Breaking Thought Barrier” Class.

For any ideas & inputs to enhance and build up this session kindly Contact: Me@9971150656/subudhi.linkan@gmail.com or Raj @9871826168/ pushpraj.nit@gmail.com for senior and Eureka batch and Anvita for Freshers batch @9971546756 anvitashukla4u@gmail.com

by subudhi.linkan@gmail.com
AID Prayas Team

Rescheduling of classes, as on Nov '09

2009-11-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

As we all know that we have been able to appoint a new teacher for our project, Ms Jyoti Kharey. We want her to handle the Freshers batch only. And rest of the volunteers will be taking the other two batches as always. So there is a need to specify the new timing and the concerned people taking the classes.

FRESHER's BATCH
Ms Jyoti Kharey
Monday to Saturday: 3.30 PM-6.30 PM

EUREKA BATCH
Sweta Pandey and Akanksha Singh
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 6.30PM-8.30PM

SENIOR BATCH
Charu, Darshan
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 6.30PM-8.30PM

ACTIVITY CLASSES FOR

EUREKA BATCH: Linkan
Sunday: 3PM-5PM

SENIOR BATCH: Linkan, Anant
Saturday: 3PM-5PM

If anybody is interested to initiate we can also start up with the activity classes for the kids of Freshers batch. So please raise your hands for the same.
Also we are planning to meet with the parents of the Fresher's kids because it has been along time since we had interacted with them and secondly we want them to know as well that there has been a change in the timing of the classes and we also want the new teacher to meet the parents. So we will meet the parents around 3PM on the coming Saturday with Ms Jyoti Kharey to get her acquainted with the kids and the parents as well. So whoever is interested to attend the meeting.

We are also encountering an issue: As all the classes of all the batches will be taken up in the new centre, there is no utilization of the old centre and we are giving a huge amount of rent for both the rooms but we are not being able to utilise them to its maximum. Yet at this time, the concern is more towards the utilisation of the old centre. Also because that is the only way community knows us. So we need to rethink how we are going to use that room and what all activities can be done there. So please come with ideas and let us know what can be done.

Charu Garg

"Sunday Perfect"

2009-11-12T23:08:00.000-08:00

On the morning of 8th November, she dressed up in her best dress and her mommy gave her a sweet hug to see her off. Little eyes anxiously wondered how the day would unfold, a day they had awaited for long. Some giggled, some fell, some caught, some just ran around; The faces of our tiny angles brightened up the day of all and sundry perfectly.

Nehru Planetarium was perhaps the pinnacle for the kids. The expresions of "wow" made me feel how much little hearts are drive to the stars. Every eye in the dark looked straight up, hooked onto the ceiling. A cluster of little hands held on tight to you. Happy faces sprinkled your face with joy.

The open air made the kids play to the fullest. The children's park visit embraced the kids to surrender to their wildest happiness and thrill. Dolls in the Doll museum served as a good source of learning. The kids got to know every attire and living style :).
All in all, it was a great day, a great experience. I got to learn a lot, in addition to spending time with truly wonderful kids, because of whom every little visit to an otherwise ordinary place was so blissfully exaggerated in its beauty, that it gave the whole picnic team a "mission accomplished" feel!

" Shilpa "

"After picnic of AID-Prayas kids on 8th Nov 2009"

Prayas Update: September and October

2009-10-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

Curiosity: Next visit to International Book Fair
After selva had taken 8 kids to Pragati Maidaan for book fair, other elder kids were amazed to see the colorful collection of books, they also expressed the interest to check out the book fair. On the last day of the fair, Gaurav came as a savior, he took the kids, Asmina, Poonam, Kiran, Reena, Danishta etc..to the fair, Raj and Linkan accompanied them. It was another adventurous trip for the kids that involved a fun driving, lots of learning, struggling with the crowd, curiosity, overeating, vomiting, speeding, chalan :P etc...all in all kids were happy, excited and occupied with lots of bits and pieces of happenings around.

Multiple wishes: 5th September
Prayas had lots of reasons to celebrate the day. One cake said – Happy Teacher's Day and the other one – Happy B'day Darshan Sir. To add to the day we celebrated BaalSabha on the same day becasue kids were ready with their small creative formulations, you should have seen the beautiful B'day cards they made. Kids acted like teachers and repeatedly sang Happy B'day :)) Most interesting thing was to see the urgency in every one's eyes while they gave last minute touch ups to their cards. The evening was very loud, colorful and cake filled :)

Moving Ahead: New Kids Admission to Govt. School
This is how we start, segregate eligible and willing kids from community and get them first admitted to Government. School. Mid September, we got around 20 new kids admitted to Govt. School. All the parents were quite supportive, all the volunteers were quite punctual. With the team effort the start looks good. We hope to see the day when all the parents would take their kids by themselves for admission to different schools the moment their kids turn to 4.

Seviyan: Eid Celebration
21st september, Eid. We reached the community center slightly late with the gifts and sweets. It was true festive there, all kids and parents super dressed up in line at the class door to put their own plate of seviyan at the center of a huge plate. They had organized it all for us, everybody looked so happy and we were overwhelmed to be a part of their happiness. After overeating the sweets, we started the distribution of gifts, Rajiv had decided to do it quickly and rush back to office. As we entered the first house, the parents hosted us with one more plate of seviyan and a bottle of cold drinks, after a mild insistence we ate them being absolutely unaware of the conspiracy that it will be repeated at every house. As we finished distributing gifts to 10th house, we were half dead!

Fear Section :Eureka kids result
Eureka kids who are going to Nayi Disha in classes Nursery and KG, cleared their exams with flying colors. Most of them scored good marks in their terminals apart from Sonu (Shahid's Brother). He failed in English, yet the school teachers said that there has been a little improvement in him and if he works hard, he can also score good marks. Other than that, the School Principal was very happy and said that all the kids from Sec 16 are good. The remarkable thing is that Seefat and Parveena have stood first in their class. So kudos to all the kids :) - These are the words of Charu on the Eureka kids result. Charu didi ki jai :)

Improvement: October BaalSabha
The best BaalSabha till now. Kids were much more prepared, clean and confident. They showcased some very good performances this time. Starting from regular group song and poem recitation to a real soothing song from a shy kid and a different cheeni bhai play from the enthusiastic ones. The day involved everything. At the end there was a fun event for volunteers which fully solved its purpose. The kids were very good, still, the best performance award goes to Prasad Haridas for his unmatchable imitation of veeru – Mausiiiiiiii jiiiii...:D It was a prefect BaalSabha, hope to see many more such events in coming days.

Bal Sabha & The Collective Cleanliness !!

2009-10-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

I was very much enthusiastic about the term called "Bal Sabha" .I think Vijay Bhaiya introduced this to me about one and half year back and I wanted this to be replicated here in AID-Prayas as well ."Bal Sabha" is a regular monthly meet where all the volunteers and kids meet and perform something,It is a platform where kids get a chance to leave the academics and showcase their talent .

We tried to start it before as well but could not succeed thinking that it has a lower priority than teaching kids .Somehow there was a mix feeling few month back when it has been observed that now we have a good number of volunteers (Approx. 20) devoted to take care of all the activities at Prayas but we all are not able to meet together. Each and every volunteer is working with different set of kids at different time(weekened,evening or night).Different set of kids has increased our strength to more than 55-60 kids.

So my long waited desire came up with the intention, that Starting "Bal Sabha" now will definitely help us in building good relationship among us and it will strengthen Prayas family ( that constitutes volunteers and kids ).
Initial two "Bal Sabha" were not that much prepared enough but we had "masti" sessions with kids and we could find some real good talent among kids in terms of dancers and singers .

Yesterdays "Bal Sabha" was special for me ,The reason is the "Collective cleanliness in all the kids" . In my opinion, I can say that "I have never seen that level of cleanliness in each & every kid of Prayas before "

I don't wanna give credit of it to any single person but this "Change" is a collective success & it has increased my faith on the tag line we as an AIDer follow ।

" Be The Change You Wish To See "

Observing these small improvements or changes in kids like "cleanliness,confidence, leadership & discipline a bit though" is enlightening to see !!

"Great job by every member of Prayas family for taking it forward .."

.........................................................................................................................................................................

Darshan Mehra

Family interaction activity – A step forward to involve community

2009-09-13T00:26:00.000-07:00

It has been 6 months since we started Talent class, which is huge success. Attendance in this class is always high. We see lot of positive changes in the kids. They are now more aware, determined, and confident. Each kid is different and unique in his own way, some budding talented kids are Poonam – a good painter , Jabaaz - awesome dancer and speaker , Subi - the great all-rounder , Julekha , Kiran.. all are great.

Talent classes not only entertain kids, it also helps them to understand their neighborhood, their environment. Its gives them break from the regular classes and rejuvenate them for further studies.

In spite of regular Talent classes, we feel there is a communication gap among parents, kids and Prayas volunteers .Parents blame their kids for not studying or obeying and kids blame parents for not paying attention to them.

So for overall development of kids, there should be some effort which we need to put to reduce this communication gap.

So keeping that in mind we found a new way of communication with the kids and their parents. This way the small loop holes will be filled up. Complaints and accomplishments of the kids can be discussed at their home. This would not make them feel ashamed for their mistakes as they feel in a meeting in front of all. And also it would make them feel good when it is a compliment for their good performance and good work.

So part of the Talent class program, we start a new initiative called Family interaction activity “A Surprise visit once in a week basis” on weekends, after the Talent class. We select 1-2 kids randomly and go there to meet with whole family.

A short story on our Day 1 visit:

“Our first visit was to Govind’s house. We appeared all of a sudden at their door. He and his family were just surprised. They welcomed us inside. We discussed about the complaint against him from his school. We had a talk regarding his attitude of not paying attention on studies and being inattentiveness in the school. There we came to know that her elder sister, who is also well qualified, help other Prayas kids in their homework etc. Where as Govind never share anything. We talked to his parents and suggested them to guide him just by sitting with him ½ n hr everyday while he does his study. Even Govind promised to do his part and his eyes were just filled with tear drops for his mistakes.

Also we got to know from his family members that as it was taught to them in Talent class to maintain cleanliness on personal basis, family members, and house and outside of the house, he is doing well on that regard and making family members do so.

Our next visit was to Subi’s home. She is doing well in her studies. So we just had casual talk with her mother about her studies and improvement in personal development. We did a check on if she is also maintaining cleanliness as taught. Though she is trying her level best yet found it is still needed to teach the same cleanliness lesson to their parents too. We did so and suggested her other to keep her younger kids in the same clean way as is Subi. “

Really it was a great feeling which the parents expressed as their Kids are given so much importance and Kids felt it as they were really valued and cared so much.

It made us feel that a good relation is built so……
Hope this will go building strong bridge further………

- Prayas Team

A visit to the International Book Fair

2009-08-31T04:04:00.000-07:00

I took 8 children Sajjad, Jabaz, Shahid, Govinda, Kiran, Sona, Zubi and Zuleka today to the fair. Children were ready and were waiting at the community gate from 10.00 despite rains, I reached slightly late. We directly went to Pragti Maidan. We went through the stalls and jumped into stalls wherever children related book were present. I asked the children to browse through and pick the books of their interest and also books for the younger children.

After they did their selection I did ask them why they choose that particular book. Really unexpected question for them and to my surprise I got unexpected answers as well :). Got to know that Sona was more interested in reading books on Natak, Zuleka on Music, Jabaz on history, space and environment, Zubi on biography on national leaders, Kiran on fantasy stories. Shahid and Sajjad were randomly browsing through... After around 4 hours of book hunting we ended up in roping up 72 books [including a few small 20 page books].

By that time Rajiv had joined us along with his sister and we bumped in to Charu's family there. Me, Rajiv and children went for lunch and post lunch children were too tired and I just grabbed some books quickly for me and we started back.

Zubi and Sajjad will re-start the library and Shahid and Sona would help them. We also got a chess / ludo board and the children wanted to start indoor games soon. Raj please consider this in one of your activities session [particularly teach them chess]. I have a carrom board in our room and I'll keep it at Prayas and children can use them as well.

- Selva Ganapthy ( aid.selva@gmail.com )

स्वाधीनता दिवस 2009

2009-08-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

मुझे भली भांति याद है 15 अगस्त 2007 का वह प्रेरक दिन ! हम 10-12 AID-Prayas के साथी "नई दिशा फ्री एजुकेशन सोसाईटी " के स्वतन्त्रता दिवस समारोह में शिरकत हुए ! कह सकते हैं की विचारों और दृष्टीकोण के जो बीज तब बोए गए थे वो आज "15 अगस्त 2009" के दिन पुलकित होकर सामने आये !

आज अचानक से मुझे मंच से बुलाया और विकास ,सेल्वा , निखिल ,राजीव ,और आनन्द ने मुझसे भी इस बात पर सहमति चाही की "अगले एक वर्ष में हम नई दिशा के सामान एक स्कूल स्थापित करेंगे " ! यधपि हम कई दिनों से इस विचार पर मंथन कर रहे थे पर अचानक से यह प्रतिबद्धता व्यक्त करना मेरे लिए थोडा सा कठिन तो था मगर "प्रयास " के साथ मेरे तकरीबन ३ वर्षों के सम्बंध ने इतना जरूर सिखाया है कि

" लक्ष्य निर्धारित करो ,उस दिशा में ईमानदार

कोशिश करो ,लक्ष्य जरूर हासिल होगा "

आज के हमारे स्वतन्त्रता दिवस समारोह के पीछे राज ,लिंकन ,चारू ,रजत,राजीव,विकास ,सेल्वा ,आनंद (भाई :) ) के महत्त्वपूर्ण कोशिशें तो थी ही वरन बच्चों की भरसक मेहनत भी थी ! और उसका यह असर था कि आज का यह दिन सबसे यादगार "समारोह " बन गया ! चाहे बच्चों का नृत्य यो या गीत-संगीत सबकुछ बहुत मोहक था ! पुरे समारोह में सबसे मुख्य आकर्षण "नई दिशा के संस्थापक " कैप्टन जायसवाल ,कर्नल जीता राम जी ,प्रिंसिपल मैडम और उनके सहयोगी थे ! हम जब भी इन लोगों के संघर्ष के अनुभवों को सुनते हैं तो प्रेरित होना स्वाभाविक है !

"प्रयास " परिवार के सदस्यों ने आयोजन स्थल को बड़ी मेहनत से तिरंगे के तीन खूबसूरत रंगों में रंग दिया था ! सारे volunteers इस समारोह के सफल आयोजन के लिए भागीदार रहे !

मैं व्यक्तिगत रूप से इतना कहना चाहता हूँ कि "प्रयास परिवार " के पास युवा ऊर्जा का जितना भण्डार है अगर हम सब मिलकर इस ऊर्जा का सर्वश्रेष्ट उपयोग कर सकें तो "कम से कम हम इस "कम्युनिटी" के हर एक बच्चे को शिक्षा पाने की स्वाधीनता प्रदान कर सकते हैं "

और सही मायनों में यही हमारी और इन बच्चों की असली स्वाधीनता होगी!

जय हिंद !!

दर्शन मेहरा

You are invited to the Independence day celebration @ Prayas on Aug 15th 2009

2009-08-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

At the stroke of midnight when the whole world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom...- Shri Jawahar Lal Nehru

Hai jo dil mein desh k liye preet ..

Hai jo dil mein armaan …

Aao wo sab ko dikhayein...

Aao is jag ko dikhayein..

Aao kuch kar dikhayein...

These words remind us of patriotism and a deep sense of respect for our Motherland - India. Keeping this feeling and commitment of “Kuch Kar Dikhayein”, the Prayas family is delighted to invite you on Independence Day celebration on 15th August 2009.

Venue : - Prayas new center Nayabans, Sector 15, NOIDA.

Timing : - 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Now, a glimpse of the events with which celebrate the Independence Day at PRAYAS. The Event schedule for this celebration will be: -

Start @ 2PM with Flag hoisting
I – Day introduction speech
A brief about Prayas
Patriotic dance
Patriotic songs
Patriotic poems
Prize distribution
Wrap up @ 6PM with Refreshment

Now here comes the main attractions for the volunteers: -

Photography competition:- Click photos of I - Day celebration activities

Venue: - I –Day celebration, Prayas new center Nayabans, Sector 15, NOIDA.

Timing: - 15th august 1:00pm onwards till end of function

Prizes: - 5 best pictures will be selected by jury and displayed at Achievements of Prayas board in new class room with their owner name. Also, the best photographer will be awarded by a prize.

So all shutterbugs and professionals, recharge/replace your batteries, clean your lenses and ready to drain your battery to showcase your talent.

I-Day decoration competition:- Decorate the celebration place

Venue : I –Day celebration, Prayas new center Nayabans, Sector 15, NOIDA.

Timing: 15th august 1:00pm – 2:00pm before the function ends

Prizes: Jury will award to the Best team.

Limited Decoration material/ Rangoli colors will be provided on venue itself.You can also bring decoration material by own.

Performance by Volunteers:- Solo/group song,experience, any on the spot activity by volunteers

Venue: - I –Day celebration, Prayas new center Nayabans, Sector 15, NOIDA.

Timing: - 15th august within function.Confirmation need to provide before start of the function.

Contact person: - Raj @9871826168 or Linkan @ 9971150656

We heartily invite u to join us on Saturday Aug 15th @ Sector 15A, NOIDA for Independence Day celebration at Prayas. RSVP your availability.

Warm Regards,

Prayas Team

Bal Sabha - When the children took control

2009-08-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

We had our Bal Sabha on August 3rd and initially it was looking like that very few volunteers showed their interest but later on we were 11-12 volunteers and 40 kids :) .

The Program started with the meaning of Bal Sabha and then the experience sharing of the kids. Elder kids Ashmina,Suby,Sona,Zulekha,Danista,Kiran,Poonam etc all shared their experience of being with Prayas.Their talent of Dancing,Singing,Reciting Poems and Imitating volunteers was superb.

Younger kids like Seefat,Parvina Sonu ,Dolly & Ruby were overly enthusiastic about their turn and their poems . Later on Volunteers like Anand ,Selva ,Charu,Linkan ,Satyan,Raj ,Darshan(Me) Shared their experiences of working with Prayas and the journey . New volunteers Bina,Pulkit ,Bhawana were enthusiastic enough to know the system better .

Raj could manage fruits(Banana & Guava ) for all the kids but unfortunate thing was that we the volunteers could not get Bananas :( .

Anyways overall the Bal Sabha went very nice and hope this series will carry on with new energy .We will require new inputs from all the volunteers to make Bal Sabha better and crispier .

Bal Sabha will be on every first Sunday of a month and you people can send your valuable inputs to Linkan (subudhi.linkan@gmail.com ) ,She will be organizing this event with Raj .

Here are the pictures from the event.

- Darshan Mehra

Seedhi sapaat zindagi bawaal ho gayi!!!!!!!

2009-06-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

Heera hates being ordered around, Sonu is a tedious worker, Shahbaaz is the naughtiest one and loves to fantasize, and Rabina has not finished her homework. Charu is totally out of the mind trying to make kids mug up the spellings, so that they score well in their new school –“Nayi Disha”, and I sit there gawking at everything.

I went with almost nil expectations, to this place, met Arun. Arun was just making me aware of all the setup, or let’s frame it this way; I was having my orientation session at Prayas, when these kids poured in. Believe me, I was taken aback by their confidence, with which they extended their hands to shake mine, and asked my name. You don’t always require a convent education to be confident enough; this belief of mine was strengthened that vey day.

I always wanted to do something for the underprivileged kids for the country. Educating them is a fairly appealing idea. Charity begins at home, with this pious intention; I decided to teach my maid at home. Poor woman agreed to my torture smilingly, and there I began with my sessions. For the reader’s info she was pregnant at that time. To my horror she met with a miscarriage the 2nd week of my classes. I dropped the idea of charity at home, that very moment.

Then I came across this organization called Prayas, through one of my old school acquaintance, and leaped in for the chance. After being at the place for very few times, I regret the fact of not coming across it earlier. The delight of being with these kids, who are equally precious to their parents like any other kids, is unfathomable. At least I feel I am making a better use of my life. I do not want any credit for this, because the sheer pleasure and the satisfaction which I get being a very dormant part of the organization –which is full of enthusiastic youngsters, is more than enough. It’s amazing to see the free flow of youth energy in all these non-profitable endeavors. And I find it a better use of my idle time, better than hanging around in the malls punctuated at every corner of the city. That is why I named this composition as “Seedhi sapaat zindagi bawaal ho gayi”. Hanging around with friends is just one normal thing you can do. I got cooler ways than that!!!! And guess what… I am loving it!! :-)

Anvita Shukla

Prayas, after a milestone!

2009-05-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

Last month, the admission month! Most of our kids joined Nai Disha. The admission to the school was a two step process, there was a written test first and then there was a convincing session by volunteers. We were around 10-15 volunteers parenting those kids. Nai Disha principal was all influenced by us and she was really a very nice person, amazing was her patience to interact with every new kid coming up and besides that we kept pressurizing her to admit our kids prior to other ones. With our assurance, she was kind enough to admit 21 out of 24 kids we took to the school for admission.

Everybody was happy. We celebrated :). We thought our part was almost done, we were relieved but here comes the tougher part! After a week or so we were summoned to the school by various class teachers. The complaint was that though we got them admitted to class 2nd, 3rd and few of them to 4th std. but their skills and understanding level did not comply with the class std.
Well, morning 8 O’clock we arrived to Nai Disha.

It was funny, as Rajiv entered the class, all the students stood up to wish "Good Morning Sir"! I further entered into the class with the fear of hearing "Good Morninig Madam" but then, some things you can’t avoid :). Anyways so after all those greetings, the class teacher called our kids and explained us few things that need to be emphasized upon to bring them up to the class level. At a point of time we felt like nothing was making much sense to us, we were just good listeners, few were the queries their parents could have answered only and trust me, few were the scolding their parents should have heard only :).

One thing we surely understood was...It was a long way to go! We came back scheduled their daily night classes, 2-3 more volunteers joined us, currently we are focusing on English. We restarted with same intensity! Everything was same except that kids now come with a purpose, and they have school books and fair notebooks with themselves, they have home works to do, it’s a busier schedule to them, they are more engaged, aware and I assume happier. After a month of conducting those classes what we feel now is - It’s always a long way to go and that’s what is nice about Prayas :)

April ’09 @ Prayas

2009-05-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

This month was a milestone period for Prayas and here goes a brief on how it went :)

Admissions at Nai Disha & Moonlight

As I was writing the updates of March ’09, it was 12.30AM Midnight and our volunteers were going of to sleep with slightly tensed about what would happen the next morning for the admissions of the children at Nai Disha. Today we proudly announce that a total of 21 children got admitted at Nai Disha (Sec 29, NOIDA) and another 5 at Moonlight Public School (Sec 15A, NOIDA). That is, a total of 26 children attend higher quality schools and now receive better education than before.

The efforts of all our regular volunteers have been a key ingredient to this success and every time I get a chance to write about them I have a new achievement from them to talk about. The volunteers that made this happen are: Darshan, Vikas, Rajat, Rajiv, Tarun, Nikunj, Charu, Anuradha, Sugandha, Selva, Abinash, Anant, Anand (in no particular order of relevance, but as a solid team).

Raj Starts Activity Sessions with the children

One of our veteran volunteers, Raj Bansal, has come back to active volunteering in the past 3 months and has been an active part of educational activities at Prayas. He has started up an activity session on Saturdays where the children are engaged in team building and collaborative games, alertness building sessions, science sessions, and a bit of silent meditation. This has been well appreciated by the children and there is a good attendance on all days for the same.

The most surprising thing I found was one day when all 12 children present were in a sitting mediation position and silent for almost 5-6minutes. This experience, in my close to 3 year engagement with the children of Prayas, was the most silent 5 minutes that I had. And so, here is a marvelous effort by Raj at managing this class and engaging the children in a constructive way.

Raj is supported by Linkan & Rashi to take his sessions. The sessions are planned for all Saturdays from 3PM-6PM at the New Center. You can reach Raj @ 09871826168, if you wish to join him.

New Volunteers this month: Rashi, Anvita Shukla, Daisy Singh

To Support us, please go through this Document.
To Volunteer with us, Click & Register Here.
To Know more about our work check - Our Blog.

Class Schedules & Volunteering Opportunities @ Prayas (April-May '09)

2009-04-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

There are these primary programs we are working on at this point:

Program 1: Nai Disha & Moonlight Entrants - Support Program

Batch II - 2/3/4th Batch
Batch II - Nursery / KG / 1st Batch

Program 2: New Batch for 2010 managed by Abhinash (Full-timer)
Program 3: Activity Sessions: led by Raj Bansal
Program 4: Computer Training Sesssions (Yet to begin)

PROGRAM DETAILS:

Latest details given below. To know further details contact Program / Batch Owners or give me (Arun Raj) a ring @ 9910908774.

Note: Feel free to forward this to any of your friends or family interested in volunteering. Also, visit our blog @ http://aidnoida.blogspot.com to stay updated with latest happenings.

Program 1: Nai Disha & Moonlight Entrants - Support Program

Batch I - 2/3/4th Batch

Venue: Centre @ Community
Owner: Rajiv – 9811981809

Time: 8.30-10.30PM

Monday: Darshan
Wednesday: Selva/Rajiv
Thursday: Darshan/Selva
Friday: Rajiv
Sunday: Sugandha/Raj

Classes will held from 8/8:30 to 10:00 on weekdays and 5:00 to 6:30 on weekends.Since these days we are required to give individual attention to the children , so anybody who finds [him/her]self free on any day can attend the class.

Batch II - Nursery / KG / 1st Batch

Owner: Charu Garg - 9958363035
Venue: Centre @ Community
Time: 6.30-8.30

Monday: Raj / Charu / Daisy
Wednesday: Abhinav / Charu / Daisy
Friday: Dilip / Charu / Daisy
Saturday: Sonika and Priyanka
Sunday: Priyanka

Program 2: New Batch for 2010 managed by Abinash (Full-timer)

Venue: New Centre
Time: 3-7PM (Batch 1: Younger : 3-5PM / Batch 2: Older: 5-7PM)
Owner: Abinash - 9971426913

Sessions held: All days from Monday - Saturday

Volunteer Opportunities: Opportunities open for supporting Abhinash to excute classes at these times. Please give me a buzz @ 9910908774 or call Abinash @ 9971426913 to know what you could do.

Program 3: Activity Sessions: led by Raj Bansal

Venue: New Centre
Time: 3-6PM (Batch II of Program 1)
Owner: Raj Bansal - 9871826168

Program 4: Computer Training Sessions

Owner: Required
Status: We have the furniture & computers ready. Computers need to be setup, configured and prepared for classes to begin.

Volunteer Opportunities: Opportunities open for setting up, starting and executing these sessions. Please give me a buzz @ 9910908774 or Rajiv @ 9811981809 to know what you could do.

First Batch of Prayas @ Nai Disha passes with success

2009-04-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

Our first batch at Nai Disha has successfully completed one year and have advanced to their next class. Subi,Sona,Sajjad,Zulekha & Sabreen each of them cleared their respective classes.

Subi & Sona will be going in class 4th and Sajjad ,Sabreen & Zulekha will be going in class 3rd from coming session.

I am really happy about the progress of the kids. Zulekha, Sona and Subi got 4th ,7th and 13th rank in their class and as expected Saabreen and Sajjad cleared the class but could not get great ranks. But the kind of progress these kids have shown is an example and an inspiration for all of us. I whole-heartedly congratulate all the kids and all of for your of efforts you have given for their success.

I hope this wonderful work will be keep going with the efforts of all of you ,and after admitting more kids this year we will be in a position to feel the achievement . But this work has to get going because now we would have greater level of responsibility .

Kudos to Prayas and to you !!!

- Darshan Mehra

March ’09 @ Prayas

2009-03-31T12:35:00.000-07:00

This March was the final lap of the year long sprint to get 20 plus children whom we have been preparing for the Nai Disha entrance tests. As I am writing this on the 31^st of March 2009, a jittery and anxious set of volunteer-teachers go to sleep. Now as they sleep, the last thought that runs through their minds is - what would be the result of the next two days of entrance sessions the children are to attend.

The preparation towards the vision of building on last year’s success of Sona, Suby, Sabreen, Zulekha & Sajjad successfully getting into Nai Disha, wraps in two days time. The 1^st and 2^nd of April will see the 25 odd children appearing for the tests. This time with a difference though. Most of the children’s parents will also be joining them along with the volunteer-teachers to the session.

The resilience of Darshan, Kannan & Vikas towards ensuring the admissions of the first batch of 5 children cannot be overlooked as we approach this milestone. If it was not for their perseverance and astute work with the children then this day would still have been a distant dream. I salute them, along with many others who would concur with me today, for their unselfish and full-hearted efforts.

And now, we stand at another pinnacle of achievements at Prayas. We can now boast of proud new set of inspiring, motivated and affirmative individuals – Charu, Sugandha, Nikunj, Rajiv, Tarun; who have made this day a reality. Charu, Nikunj & Tarun have successfully managed a bunch of 4-7 year olds that spread mayhem in the class as they entered. Rajiv & Sugandha then had to use their diligence and a sustained attack on their patience to manage the next set of 7+ year olds. Hats of to them!

With the help of veteran volunteers at AID NOIDA like Darshan, Kannan & Vikas’s directions and support these volunteers, today there is hope of brighter days at Prayas. A few other valuable volunteers of mention, who are also to be noted for their long standing efforts in this endeavor are – Anuradha, Raj, Anand, Prasad & Rajat.

To sign off I would like to keep my fingers crossed and hope by the time you are reading this we already have some good news to party about.

Also, kudos to Anand as he signs off the accounts for the first Financial Year at AID NOIDA. He has diligently & meticulously managed the accounts and his efforts require a candid applause.

- Arun Raj

The Krish Team

2009-03-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

This was my team for the picnic : Sarfaraz, Ajay, Shahid, Aditya & Govind. We called ourselves the Krish team. Why Krish? 'Coz Ajay & Shahid call me Krish as my new hairstyle resembles Krish's hairstyle.

February ’09 @ AID Prayas

2009-03-01T03:58:00.000-08:00

If last month seemed eventful, for those who follow Prayas, this week was equally eventful. Here goes this month’s happenings:

Full timer takes Control of the new batch of children

As a key enabler for the long term objectives of Prayas, we recruited our full timer teacher & a future coordinator for our activities, if all goes by plan. Abhinash started his efforts beginning this month with training the new batch (Batch of 2010) of children. This batch of children was listed out of the group of children that registered with us during the survey efforts of last month’s Republic Day Celebration. As a follow up to this event, we met the children’s parents and counseled them about the objectives of education and the need to balance the child’s educational needs.

Abhinash belongs to Orissa but is well-versed with Hindi. He has a good background of leadership backing him; some valuable fund-raising experience for the Orissa flood victims. He was also part of the NCC during his education. He has a strong conscience and we see him as a potential candidate to manage Prayas in the coming times.

Picnic @ Prayas

The best part about picnic’s that we have seen at Prayas are the People or Volunteers. Each time, we have at least 7-8 new volunteers who are enthusiastic, and we have fortunately had a few hold on for the long run. We took the children to the Qutab Minar and then a trip to India Gate’s children’s park. Our regulars - the veterans as you may also refer to as - Rajat, Anand , Darshan, Selva & myself (Arun Raj) were on the floor to see that the execution of the picnic went well. But, the better part was we saw new volunteers like Anant, Akanksha & Sonia involved to make this a wonderful event.

Other Pictures of the event: Set 1, Set 2

Rajat – Veteran Volunteer; expresses his awe at Prayas' position today :)

Rajat Maheshwari is one of the key patron's of AID's Prayas initiative @ NOIDA. 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 in the course of past two years have changed a lot. Here are his comments:

“I am very poor in writing. But Darshan has been requesting me for a long time to write something. As part of the mails exchanged on the group about the whole picnic experience, it was agreed to by all that it was like one big family on a picnic. The children's enjoyed and all of us also and frankly speaking we even tried to extend the picnic time also :D Thanks a lot to everybody for making the event a BIG SUCCESS.

Let me phrase a small incident that happened around 3 weeks ago. I was sitting in one of the night classes 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, but then suddenly I heard Sona speaking something in English. Surprisingly, it was the exact translation of what Darshan wrote in Hindi with all tense and grammar correct. I was shocked. I kept smiling all the time in the class. Sona was the same student we use to teach "ABCD" when we started Prayas. This was not especially about Sona, but mostly all the children in the class were able to translate. It's a very small thing, but it gave me the feeling what we have really achieved. "HATS OFF TO THE TEAM." I give a visit sometimes to the evening classes and can see "Prayas family" putting heart to teach children's with everybody contributing in someway.

Anyways today the efforts continue in the hopes to get as many of our children's admitted in Nai Disha & other good schools nearby.”- Rajat Maheshwari

Thanking God for all our successful efforts and the learnings we have had at Prayas as individuals and a team :) - Arun Raj

Rajat expresses his awe at Prayas' position today :)

2009-02-25T02:00:00.000-08:00

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.

A thought to remember....:)

2009-02-10T23:31:00.000-08:00

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.

January '09 @ AID NOIDA - Prayas

2009-02-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

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 11^th 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 25^th 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 26^th 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 26^th 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.

Defining moment for a Volunteer :)

2009-01-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

Here is one of those defining moments for a volunteer :)

Rajiv lies down after setting out the dari in the new class on the eve of the class inauguration. The class is finally ready after more than a month of work from negotiating with the broker, deciding the colors that need to go in the class, finalising the inauguration date to this day.

He now looks around & reminisces the moments of toil and shared efforts of all the volunteers that has been put into completing the work to develop this class. The smile on his face says it all ... :)

Thanks to all the volunteers who contributed equally to see this dream @ Prayas take shape.

Our new class is a standing monument of the work we have all done for the past 3+ years and is a call out to all others to give back to their society.

Dance Team @ Prayas - Needs your Support

2009-01-18T00:21:00.000-08:00

With the AID Delhi birthday celebrations nearing, planned for Sunday 25th January, an event hosting children of all our projects across Delhi / NCR. We are expecting atleast 100-120 children, volunteers to settle in & participate in events and games. The plan is to celebrate and have fun.

I presented this opportunity to the children Prayas who were enthused and all reared up to dance their hearts out. Asmina & Ishrat specifically came up and told me that they it was their 'tamannna' (dream) if they could get dress up in pretty clothes to do perform on stage. I was totally for this but we needed somebody to train the children for the performance. And so the search began.

An innocent request that came in from the children and I felt honored to work towards getting it done. Being the lazy person that I am I did put a mail but dint go out actively searching for a choreographer for them, honestly speaking. But 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 finalised with Apoorva who was from Tarun's office - Kritikal Solutions. And she has been doing a wonderful at this 6 days of dance classes down the line.

The enthusiasm and happiness while dancing has been an invaluable sight to me the past few days. They keep telling Apoorva about possible different ways of presenting a step - 'Didi, hum aise kar len?'. They are ready to discipline themselves to make the dance appear as beautiful as possible. Apoorva gives them the necessary space that this creative spirit in the children also works along.

And finally, when they are all tired after working hard dancing when they sit down to take a break and drink water there is an observable shade of satisfaction that could be read only through their eyes. Hope we better the ever ready to dance Aashayein team.

Hey, if you wish to support you could pledge an amount you wish to support the team for the cost transport, clothes and accessories. You could also be part of this wish coming true. Please come forward :)

- Arun Raj

Finally, Open for Business :)

2009-01-13T01:57:00.000-08:00

Jan 11, 2009 (Sunday):

Today, we inaugurated the 'much talked about' new center of Prayaas in Sec 15, Naya Bans. It was attended by all the children of Prayaas along with parents of some of the children plus entire gamut of volunteers. We started with the brief introduction of Prayaas 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. Nikunj was formally introduced to as full time teacher. After that parents of the five Nai Disha children shared their experiences and changes felt by them in their wards. This was followed by cultural program by the children showcasing their inherent talent. Snacks were served to conclude the event.

Volunteers who witness to this mega show of unity and commitment were Anuradha, Arun, Atul, Charu, Divisha, Neha, Nikunj, Peeyush, Prasad, Raj, Rajiv, Sonika, Sugandha, Tarun, Vikas & friends of many of the volunteers. Literacy India was represented by Mr Duggal & Sohit. This event was made successful by arduous effort of all Prayaas volunteers, notably Arun, Prasad, Rajiv, Sugandha & Vikas.

Overall we all enjoyed and it went quite beautifully.

Cheers!!

Anand

We are all Selfish - Instinctively

2009-01-12T23:27:00.001-08:00

Whom better to understand this from other than from the innocent children who voice their opinions in vivid and naive statements, beyond bounds of diplomacy and politcal correctness. I was a victim or a proud recipient of one such opinion or compliment yesterday.

With the AID Delhi Birthday celebration coming up on 25th Jan I saw an opportunity for our children to performand showcase their abilities. I presented this last week to Asmina, Ishrat, Reena & Subi who after which have been clinging onto me everyday I met them to get them somebody to teach and prepare them for the performance. And, we did successfully manage to get a lady for teaching the children dance. One nice lady from Kritikal Solutions - Apoorva. Asmina even voiced to me that it was her 'tamanna' that she wore some lovely designed clothes and danced on a stage.

There was this sudden surge of popularity that Arun Sir was getting. Yesterday evening while walking all of them to their home the girls were hanging onto every bit of me as though they have found a piece of chocolate that they don't want to let go off. Each one now vying for one finger of mine to hang on to. Its been some time since I received such a lot of female attention but then this was different ;).

Then, Asmina, who was all blah-blah-blah about one too many stories of which I lost count and sync with for a while, made a startling statement which is even now buzzing in my head as fresh as then - "Arun Sir humare favorite Sir hai!!". And then as though in a chorus there was Ishrat, Reena, Kiran and others who agreed to it without a doubt.

Surprised!!! ... I was stunned!!! I have been coming regularly only for 3 weeks now (even though I have been part of Prayas for 2.5yrs now) and I don't even teach them. Before I went to sleep, I could not help but be confused about how to accept that as a compliment or innocent attempt at coaxing Arun Sir further.

While I was confused, I was trying to understand where was the root of this confsion. I noticed that in our daily lives we are all trying to compete, survive & diffrentiate. In this endeavor most of us unconsious of our own actions and thoughts questioning - 'Why should I help them/him/her?' or 'What is in it for me?'. I strongly feel, in this unending questioning, we are lost unable to help neither ourselves nor another. Most of us would have surely noticed that some children make statements like - 'Why should I give him my pencil/rubber/etc.?'.

I have not received this level of attention from the children in the past 2.5yrs of spending time with them. The attention the children was giving me had a very instinctive & natural nature about it. I had aligned with a dream they had and by being able to fulfil I was being given the special treatment. I personally feel the statement they made for me was not justified enough and have not counted it as an endorsement or compliment of any sort for the work I have done. Simply, because it was out of sheer instinct. It was not right.

Some of us would have surely received such attention because of some one thing we have been able to give them. Others would struggled to connect because they not been. And this then directly affects our efforts. Some burn out, others lose interest fast and quite a few others are lost in an unending attempt trying to find out what can they do.

I love the children anyway they are. My attachement to the service I am doing will be alive as long as I am able to deliver it to my fullest capability. But then after this episode I could not help but conclude that - We are all selfish, atleast instinctively. And I believe each of us volunteers should be aware of this instinctively selfish expression of love with anybody from a 1 year old to 18 year old to a 31 year old to a 60 year old and be detached from such emotional expressions and be attached more toward the service you can provide.

And my feeling is that if we are able to do this then we have some brighter days ahead. :)

God Bless All !!

Inauguration of New Classroom Setup @ Prayas on Sunday 11th Jan '09

2009-01-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

" We heartily invite you to join us on Sunday Jan 11^th @ Sector 15A, NOIDA for this new beginning at Prayas. " - Friends of AID Prayas

Prayas has been 3 years in the nurturing from a humble beginning. From supporting a few teenage boys post their work schedules late in the evening 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 onto a full blown 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 and today stand proudly to announce to and invite you to the opening of new class at - Nayabans, Sector 15, NOIDA.

Some Achievements: Time Line '06-'09

Jan '06 – Prayas begins
August '06 – Classes start for girl children of the community
June '07 - 25 Kids into government school at Sector 15 NOIDA
March '08 – 5 Children – Suby, Sabreen, Zulekha, Sona & Sajjad, joins Nai Disha a Free School at Sector 29, NOIDA
Jan '09 – A new classroom : Bigger & Better

Prayas has inspired 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.

PS: For reaching the location and directions you may call me or Arun Raj @ 9910908774 or Rajiv @ 9811981809

Happy New Year from the Children @ Prayas

2008-12-31T11:38:00.001-08:00

A special new year's greeting designed by the children for all the bhai's and didi's that have taught them and spend time with them. :)

Wishing a wonderful new year for Prayas & its friends!!

Christmas Activity @ Prayas

2008-12-25T22:20:00.001-08:00

This was one session that most people who missed it would really regret not being present.

- 33 Kids

- 6 Groups with each having a child leader

- 8 Volunteers for guiding

- 8 Pieces of Chart Paper

- A lot of colors

- ONE PICTURE - A Tree in its most youthful bloom :)

The Objective : The Value of working together.

The Process: Each team was given a set of colors and a sheet to work on. The sheets were all charted out with pencil on what colors to use and what is the direction to take. Each set of children were lead by a child leader who was initially briefed on what work needs to be done by them. They then selected their teams and went in to work. The leaders were given an additional objective to see that all the children in their team were involved in the work done.

The Moral of the Activitiy: The final picture was a sight worth calling an achievement. The kids themselves were able to explain the moral of the story at the end of the activity - Working together we can achieve more.

The Volunteers: Charu, Kavita, Ruchi, Anand Bhai, Atul, Nikunj, Rajiv & Arun

A big applause to Kavita who initiated the idea and spread the fire :)

The Library - Begins @ Prayas

2008-12-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

We finally started up the library at Prayas and have been receiving a surprising and enthusiastic response from the children. Thanks in a big way to Selva's initiative that this took off.

Sajjad has been given the task of - The librarian, and has been doing the task well. Although, we currently have only a few bookws and it has started off in a plastic bag has a long way to go.

We are looking for some good children's books that can go into our shelf - Comics English & Hindi, Children's story books & anything you feel that can be relevant to the reading skills of 1st ,2nd & 3rd Std.

In the pictures here are : Sabreen, Subi & Sajjad. The first set of children we successfully transitioned from the Govt. School to Nai Disha.

Gathering @ Khaaja Chowk -Sept 08

2008-10-02T03:56:00.001-07:00

Finally after a longtime we met to look forward into the future of children of Prayas :)

The Suspects: Arun ,Atul ,NiKhil ,Rajiv ,Anand ,Suganda ,Ruchi ,Sonia ,Vikas ,Kanan ,Darshan ,Amit ...

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

Inauguration of Vocational Classes at AID Prayas

2008-08-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

We had the formal inauguration of vocational classes by AROH foundation for AID Prayas community women today. There was a good response from the community and we enrolled around 15-16 women including young girls like Juhi for the classes. The classes will be starting from Monday (8th Dec., 2008) and will take place on alternate days in the afternoon from 1:00 P.M to 3:00 P.M. They will be charging Rs 10 as admission fee and Rs 50 on a monthly fees from the women. They'll be conducting sewing and stiching classes to start with and provide certification of training at the end of six months after a test.

Rajiv Garg

मस्ती का एक पूरा दिन !! :D, Picnic at Prayas Mar 16th 2008

2008-03-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

It was a great scene at the Prayas class inside the community on 16th March 2008. The early morning rush in the narrow pathway of the community apart, there were some bright faced parents who were eager to send their children along. A special mention was the look on Afsana's mother -Naimudin Shah, who had a glow on her face as if she was climbing a NASA Space Shuttle. A total of 32 children came along with us for the picnic. The kids were all dressed up and ready to go on a day of learning and fun. Gudia in a bright lovely yellow frock with red frills and a matching top, glowed with that beautiful smile of her. She surely was my favourite. But, every one of our children was rearing to enjoy this day and every one of them a special little star in our eyes.

We had with us that day the ususal suspects / volunteers - Anand Bhai, Neha, Nikhil, Ruchi, Darshan, Vikas, Kanan, Sonia & me and also some volunteers from HCL - Sharukesh, Sanjay, Nikhil, and Pawan, courtesy Sonia's effort. Anand Bhai's sister Pooja & Darshan's friend Jagdish had also joined us and were a great help. We did miss two people thou - Anuradha & Raj, without whom there was surely a difference. Our kids have this habit of greeting all new and old volunteers with the same energy and interest that, make you feel you are special to them from the very moment you reach there. This feeling I believe, drives many of us to be present with them no matter what the circumstances are. I feel, the new volunteers also felt a similar emotion after spending time with the children of Prayas.It now started rising upon me as if we were taking on a journey like the Roadies. Every moment was a task, at which the success was, a bright smile on lovely faces our children. From the moment we entered the bus, we started singing songs and dancing with the children. If either of the children felt left out it would have been a loss, but our Dhira-Shoor-Volunteers would not loose hope that fast. Kanan & Selva started with Nikhil a.k.a Dhoni Sir, backing them up with songs and 'folk' music.Neha & Ruchi meanwhile worked on forming groups of children as teams of 5-6. Each team had a color to identify them - Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Gold & Silver. The blue team with 'Dhoni Sir' were the most loud and proud of them all. They somehow stuck to their own groups beyond our expectations, hand in hand throughout the picnic. Our attempt at team-building did succeed to an extent. Good Going Ruchi & Neha!Our first stop was the Natural History Museum. At the gate stood, a T-rex - the most infamous & ferocious of all dinosaurs. The look on some of the children's face said it all. Zulekha has this i-have-seen-a-ghost look about her as she ran towards me, when Subi convinced her it was not real. Inside the museum, the children hung on with their group leaders and enjoyed the exhibits.

After a few photo sessions, the gliteratti (;P) moved on, to venture into more open grounds. We reached India Gate @ the Children's Park. Selva, Kanan, Ruchi, Neha & others played some games with the children, while I was having an adventurous time finding and then negotiating with the Food Delivery Guys.Finally, after all the play and hard work we all sat to have a well-deserved meal. And viola !! Dal Makhani & Shahi Paneer … After all, the Darshan's Dal-Makhani Democracy failed today, while suffering a distressing fate at it. We discussed and voted on mails and phone to finally decide, Dal Makhani was the choice of common taste with some Aloo Gobbi. yes, I personally along with Kanan, indicated to the people of Breakpoint Hotel that we will not be taking any Shahi Paneer. But lo & behold … Both Shahi Paneer & Dal Makhani ! वह कहते है न – "जले पे नमख चिदखना", वैसे लगा मुझे कुछ टाइम के लिए.Sajjad brought some finger-licking good गोबी-की-सब्जी and roti from home for us. Me and Ruchi dug into it to savor in the flavor of the food. Sonia took the lead with the food to distribute the thali's to the volunteers. प्यारी मोटी मौका देखकर बैट गई ;) … Neha was now trying her luck at getting some beginner pics of a few gypsy ladies around. She tried hard at it and was trying to get what she called, the right composition. But all she got was a few gypsy ladies who were on her tail to get mehndi written on her hand, in exchange for pictures taken. Until, our hero – Anand Bhai, like Dharam Paaji, at the top of his voice took charge to shoo the ladies away. Neha now, literally gasping for precious breath is not going to do much of photography for her own sake. By around 2.30 we wrapped up from there and set sails for the Rail Museum at Chanakyapuri. Darshan had joined us by now and set the feeblish spirits on fire, with some evergreen Dev-Anand class energy. He sings and sings and sings and then dances also, the children now can only clap, because this guy had more energy than the 32 Kids & 14 other volunteers combined.

We now reached the destination at the Rail Museum.The Rail Museum was an exciting place with all the model trains and well described history of the Rail Network in India. Sharukesh and his group were the most interested of listening to the stories of trains and the history associated with it. Looking at him I felt this guy had some skill in handling kids. Anand Bhai also tried his luck at trying to get some of the children to listen to him, but I saw most of them running away with a बचाओ-भूत-आया look about them. The children after the Joy Train ride found the experience exciting and wanted a repeat ride. If it was not for the कम्बक्त time, we could have but then we had to leave.

We got ice-creams for all of them as the final treat for the picnic. This boosted energy levels of the volunteers and children to a new level. Everybody was now involved in singing and dancing as if there was no office or school tomorrow. It came to an end now after we parked out in front of the community and the children & volunteers emptied out. With a heavy heart I breathe a heavy sigh of relief and felt a joy that overcame the pain and tiring, inflicted throughout the day. A great day for Prayas came to an end and with great efforts from all the people involved to make this an invaluable day in the history of our prayas at Prayas. We have a wonderful team today with some great efforts being put in worth oodles of compliment and praise.

I am proud to be part of Prayas !

Jai Hind !!

Arun Raj

When I Look Back

2008-02-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

Its been six months now and surprisingly it had been satisfying. He was happy. A happiness which had no past or a future ,may be, just the present. A happiness which had no reason. But, he was happy.

His college days were over, and it was time for him to join one of those MNCs. And when he joined this company, he was a bit scared..., a bit confused.... Not clear about his future, Not clear about his goals.
Till then his life had some purpose, he knew what exactly had to be done...
He had to get a job. He had to get a job so that his family could be financially secure, so that his family could stay happy and thus he would be happy. For him, personally, he had never thought anything beyond that, that was it, the end, the end of his aspirations, his energy, his passion, his life.

and from then, started the life of the machine, which i tried to capture in one of my previous posts.
He was getting into the exact life which i was always afraid of.
He had started to live the "The Life for a Resume." The Life of doing innovations for the sake of it, trying to compete with others, getting the work done before it was scheduled, covering more and more work portfolio, all this and more so that his resume looks good. He was trying to squeeze his life into that A4 size resume not knowing that he was strangling, suffocating himself, not knowing that, later, when he will look back, this resume will mean nothing more than a piece of paper for him.

But it was going to change soon, and the change surprisingly did not come from the more happening malls, or the posh pubs of noida, rather, it came from a slum community in Noida. It was one of the friends from his college, who had introduced him to this NGO working in Noida.

Well he dint have anything else to do on the weekends, and so he decided to do the so called "Social service". But before he started, he wanted to understand, why he was doing this.
Was he doing this so that he could tell every one that he is doing social work. so that whenever some one called him, he could tell that,
"yeah.. hi ,.. you know what, I go and do some NGO work nowadays. " ..
hmm... May be , may be not....
But what priority did it have in his life ? well , a movie definitely had more priority.
Isnt it..????

Was he doing this for his own satisfaction ? that whenever he gets some free time go spend some time with the children and get that feel good factor "of doing something good". Was it..???
Dont know... may be .. may be not...

Was he doing this coz he really cared for them and wanted to bring in some change there. Was it...?

Dont know.... I really dont know...

He started going there. Started spending some time with the kids there. It was good. He was happy.
But then like all those gals who had rejected him, the kids were also not going to accept him initially.
For the first few weeks no kid went to him to learn. He just went there every weekend, sat there amidst all those noise they made,... he was trying to find some silence in that noise. He was happy.

One day one of their 'sir'jis asked them to do "chappan adhik paintalis" and one gal dint know how to do it. Trying to find the answer from somewhere she went to him and asked
"Sirji, sirji. ye kaise karte hain..?"
Well he dint know what chappan or paintalis meant. For that matter he dint know any number beyond pachis in Hindi. But he dint want to tell her that. It was for the first time some one was coming to him to learn something. Instead, he said,

"acha... dheko beta, ye toh bahut hi aasan dediya woh sirji ne.. main aapko thoda jyaada tough deta hun. dus + pantrah. dhekte hai kar paogi ki nahi..? "

"kar paoongi sirji, abhi karke laati hun".
with one of the cutest and naughtiest smile she left for doing the problem.

He was happy. some one had gone to him for learning something for the first time.
From the next day it was learning more than teaching for him.
kids teaching him daye, baye, and he teaching them left, right.

Though gradually more and more kids started going to him for learning, there was one kid who always sticked to him. Our "chappan adhik paintalis". He should be there, then only she would start studying. More than a student, she was a lil sister to him.

Now he knew, why he was doing this. It brought some purpose into his life. It brought some passion, some passion to achieve something for some one other than himself. He knew that he could stay happy now only if his this new family is happy. Kids were happy to see him, they were happy to be with him, and he was too.

Thus went one of the most satisfying six months of his life...

But things cannot move so smoothly right. It was on the day I came back from the vacation with my smaller family, I learnt that there was govt order to remove that slum from there. I learnt that although the NGO had fought a lot to oppose it, they could not. They had closed this center.

and again I was left all alone in that road.
I was again getting into the exact life which i was always afraid of.
Once again I had started to live the "The Life for the Resume."
The next weekend, in the evening..., I went for a long walk, I walked a long distance through those 4 lane roads in Noida thinking about the meaninglessness of this life and about my meaningless future, and one of the decision I took during those long walks was to move to bangalore, to share the happiness of my smaller family.

It was after a long gap of 6 years I went back to Noida again. I went for that walk again, on those straight four lane roads of noida, thinking about the past.
A traffic jam...
I saw her, my lil sister....
My chappan adhik paintalis.
She was begging for food...... ???????
A police man was walking towards her. He slapped her on her face. caught her by her hair and pushed her to the side of the road.

I ran towards her,
God, I did not have the courage to look at her face.,
She had...
she looked at me, recognizing me, she asked,

"Why Sirji, why, why did you leave us alone...?"

What should I say...
Oh God, I could not save my lil brothers and sisters.

Kannan

Some thoughts

2008-02-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Why many of us have pity over people in wretched conditions, with shabby looks and dirty clothes. And why few of us feel so bad about their condition that they don’t mind giving spare coins to these unprivileged humans. Feeling that he or she is living comfortable life and untidy person knocking on the car doors for changes is fighting to have meal for two times can drive anyone emotional and devoid him or her of reasons. A person can think giving few coins to beggars or urchins on traffic signal wouldn’t solve their problems but make their day little easier.

I have observed this tendency in many volunteers, whose soul aim is to make a day little better for children studying in schools or community centers sponsored by various NGOs. They are over protective and most of the times forgetful of shortcomings in children attending the class. So who suffer in the end …. These overprotective Sirji and Madamji would eventually leave that project or classes because of other commitments in life and replaced same kind of sugar coated very very sensitive and emotional volunteers. But these children miss another chance to become more equal in our highly unequal society.

I wish to have system where they are treated professionally than emotionally. They are poor and unprivileged and they would have to leave with this fact. Our aim should be make them aware of power of education and how it can change their lives And why they should always strive for better education. We can give them new bags so that they don’t feel bad among other children in school. We can provide them with clothes and we can many more things. But why to do all so .. Why make them privileged and I wonder if doing so would possible in long run …. Why not limit ourselves to giving them education, preparing them for better schools and guiding them for their future. Lastly, why not treat them as a normal child would be treated in a normal classroom.

Nikhil

AAGAAZ... the begining :)

2008-02-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

No children in the class..

Electricity connection gone just before playing the movie..

Children’s parents barge in and take back their kids without explanation..

…..Those were some of the crisis moments that we went through with the start of classes at Aagaaz, but by God’s grace we pulled it through on all those occasions. And then, what’s the fun working without challenges! These moments remind me of an Ashutosh Gowarikar movie like Lagaan or Swadesh where the impending failures threaten the strugglers before success finally takes over. I may be dramatizing it too much, but it was the first social start-up I’ve worked on and it did scare the hell out of me some of the times :)

Thanks to Darshan’s support things seem to be headed for sunshine times. I wouldn’t like to bore you with details, but currently we’re teaching approx 15 kids, most of whom are going to school. We’re visiting the community to tap the most needy non-schoolgoers.

And yes, we celebrated 26th Jan by showing them the movie ‘Air Buddies’ (hindi version)- the movie in which the puppies run away from home because they don’t want to be separated. The kids enjoyed it. After that each child presented an impromptu performance- a somg or a joke (or even a PJ at times! Esp the one by Anita’s brother Jasvinder which neither me nor Mayank were able to understand!!). Then we concluded with a brief discussion about the importance of Republic Day, and yes, the sweets.

Deciding on a fixed curriculum and interaction with the community people are next on the cards. Plus admitting the non schoolgoers to the Govt school, for which of course we’ll need more volunteers. Thank you for bearing with the post in case you’ve read it through till hereJ. And yes, the pictures I’ll arrange next time. This one is one of my old Prayas pics.

Shruti Tewari

26 January 2008 @ PRAYAS an Awesome Experience !!!!

2008-02-01T05:17:00.000-08:00

सर : बच्चो 26 जनवरी क्या होता है ?
हाथ खडे करो ....एक ,दो ,तीन और चार ,बस चार ही हाथ,अच्छा कविता तुम बताओ ?
कविता :- सर जी 26 जनवरी 1950 से पूलिस आयी थी !
सर : ओ.के.,और कुछ ?
कविता : कानून आया था !
सर : और कोई ? चन्दा तुम बताओ ?
चन्दा : सरजी उस दिन से संविधान लागू हुआ था !
सर: गुड .संविधान क्या होता है ?
चन्दा : सरजी ........पता नहीं ,
सर : और कोई बतायेगा ?
साबरीन : 26 जनवरी को देश आजाद हुआ था !
सर : नहीं बेटा ,देश 26 जनवरी को नही 15 अगस्त 1947 को आजाद हुआ था !

This was the way our republic day celebration at sector 16-Noida Community took off on 26th Jan 2008.One thing was very much noticeable on that afternoon i.e. every kid was looking so smart in new and clean clothes, Everyone was so enthusiastic about the celebration. I was just wondering, When I was kid I used to be such joyful when there was Holi or Deewali J .So after the above discussion we tried to explain them what does it mean to be Republic ,and what is Republic day . Lot of people(Volunteers) and lot of ways to explain them. I don’t know how much successful we were to explain them about constitution and republic. I explained them about national Flag “तिरंगा” too.

Suddenly Sonia said, we want to listen song not the Bhasan here :) , so next round of joy, talent & masti began with lot of patriotic songs ,Sona ,Hina ,Subi,Afsana,Danista,Reena,Gudiya ,Jyoti ,Chanda , every kid participated in those nice songs. Kavita, Isharat and Ashmina shows there theatre skills with their patented Skit “अनपढ भाभी” :) .Geeta was the “Voice of Noida” for that day ,She sings very well .after every kid has done their job now it was the volunteers turn .

Started with Anand Bhai’s valuable talk, he mainly stressed upon the education and hygiene part of their life. Now “Nikhil” Dhoni Sir told about one pledge funda ,It was wonderful concept actually ,he told them to pledge one good thing they will follow from today, On a lighter note Nikhil sang couple of songs of “Himesh Reshmiya” and he danced like a Rock star :),After Nikhil it was the turn of Ruchi madam, She told them about the value of being neat and clean ,being hygienic she motivated them to clean themselves, their home their community ,nice to hear it :).

Selva He sang a song beautifully and all the kids joined him too. After everything done Kavita and few other kids insisted to see any performance from my side .After thinking for a minute, I got the song which I had to sing

“लकडी की काठी,काठी का घोडा, घोडे के सर पे जो मारा हथौडा....” I asked Arun and Anand bhai to
join me and then we sang and acted accordingly :), it was great to be with our PRAYAS kids always.

Climax of the function was the most wonderful thing cause of “National Anthem “
Everyone stand up and sang “राष्ट्रीय गान”. After all this function delicious “Ladoo” and snacks party were there, we enjoyed it a lot, Thanks to Selva :) .

Lot of volunteers attended the celebration on that day Ruchi,Anuradah,Divisha,Arun,Kanan,Nikhil,Anand,Selva ,Sonia ,Pamela & of course me (Darshan) were there with kids and they made that day memorable for us J.
Those two hours of republic day afternoon were most wonderful hours on any Republic Day celebration for me.

Darshan Mehra
darshanmehra@gmail.com

Together we can and we will make the difference!!

2007.. A Journey

2008-01-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

Last year was pretty eventful for Prayas. We tried lots of things- achieved many short term goals and missed many. But we all remained committed to our long term goal to provide light of education to unprivileged children of community at Naya Bans, Sector 16 Noida. We hope to empower this community through education and help them to get rid from suffering caused by ignorance and lack of education. We believe we can educate a whole family by educating a kid from that family.

We began 2007 with Republic Day celebration. Prayas family was big 50 girls and around 25 boys. Evening classes were conducted for girls and night classes for boys. But by May number of children dwindled to 13-16. Worried by the setback we visited community and talked with community elders and students’ parents. This approach helped us in increasing the number of children, their attendance and motivation level.

By comparison, month of July was the most successful. The most significant achievement was admission of 25 children in government school. Second achievement was arrangement of regular classes at government school. Most of the credit of these goes to Anuradha who not only met regularly with school officials for admission purpose but also made sure that we get a room for evening classes. In this month we also conducted a health camp with the help from Gurgaon based Corporate Executive Board.

August brought many unexpected challenges. The village pradhan of Naya Baans stopped us from taking evening classes at school on pretext that we don’t have permission. We tried to move back to moon light public school. But they also refused. Moreover at government school we had influx of great number of students who would think these classes as tuition or simply would come for fun. Needless to say present of such students didn’t help. During this time we also faced problem in conducting night classes for adult student as we had only two volunteers for that.

So by the end of August we had problems, challenges, problems and challenges. But these problems and challenges helped us in focusing our efforts. We knew where we wanted to go and we had to choose a path to reach there considering our resources and circumstances. We redefined our short term goal as success of 24 children that we admitted in school in their respective class. We planned and organized a workshop so that volunteers could train and teach children better. As both government and Moonlight school denied us a room, we shifted back to community.

We changed our approach too. We started maintaining attendance register and rewarding regular and good performer class. Our students were lacking fluency in language, which was hampering their understanding of world around them and stopping them form expressing them clearly. Vijay bhaiya guided us and we also realized that without language skills our children wouldn’t be able to compete. Darshan took the lead and started a crusade to teach children Matra and Barahkhadi. Of course he got many foot soldiers to fight along with him.

After high of September, came low of October. Volunteers were not regular and efforts were not getting consolidate in a direction. Then in the early November the angry lady Neha reminded us how we are neglecting duty toward Prayas. Although we all had reasons and excuses, this reprimand opens eyes of some of the most regular volunteers in Prayas. Lastly, we had great celebration of Diwali with kids.
December was altogether a different month. We discussed, argued and introspect like never before. Arun summarized our expectation from children in two lines.
1. Every Child will be capable of expressing and sharing her / his thought process in a refined and fluent manner. 2. She / he will be physically and mentally fit to stand as role models in the community, for other children and parents.

Aim for 2008 ( Using Ruchi’s words)
· We are looking towards making serious amends to the existing scenario, which would mean.- A full-time Teacher be dedicated to the kids (salaried, of course!). It has become almost a priority. If anyone f you know of someone who can live up to the responsibility, we will like you to recommend the name.
· Currently, we are inclined towards sending some of the deserving kids to a regular school (read Nayi Disha). We’ll be identifying the kids who can be groomed for it (in a matter of 3months); also the feasibility of the whole subject, which includes permissions from the school, as well as the parents permission for letting their children go that far. This is a far-fetched goal, no plans so far only a vision which has to be developed!

---Nikhil

AID- PRAYAS , एक प्रयास..

2008-01-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

AID-Prayas, अगर यह कहा जाय की प्रयास एक ऐसा माध्यम है जो कुछ नौजवानों के समूह के लिये एक मिशन के समान है तो कतई गलत नही होगा, मिशन कुछ ऐसे बच्चों की ज़िन्दगी को सँवारनें का ,जिन्हें शिक्षा जैसी मूलभूत जरूरत के लिये भी जूझना पडता है !! मिशन एक ऐसी शुरुआत की जो इन बच्चों को यह समझाने में मदद करे सके कि “शिक्षा रहित” और “शिक्षा सहित” ज़ीवन के उद्देश्यों में और जीवन की सार्थकता में कितना बडा अंतर है !

नोएडा सेक्टर 16 के पीछे बसे हुए इस समूदाय के लोगों को अपनी व अपने परिवार की रोजी-रोटी के लिये ही इतनी मशक्कत करनी पडती है कि वे अपने बच्चों के भविष्य के बारे में सोचें इससे पहले ही उनके लिये एक नया दिन शुरू हो जाता है जिसमें उन्हें फिर से रोजी-रोटी की चिंता को प्राथमिकता देना सर्वोपरी है !
हम AID-Noida के Volunteer प्रयास के माध्यम से,एक प्रयास कर रहे हैं जो इन गरीब और अनपढ माँ-बाप को सहायता कर सके उनके बच्चों की शिक्षा में !

दो वर्ष से लगातार इन बच्चों के साथ काम करते हुए आज हम इस स्थिति में पहुँचे हैं कि ,कुछ बच्चों को नई दिशा में दाखिल किया जा सके ! शनिवार और रविवार की शाम की कक्षा (शनिवार- 4:30 बजे और रविवार 3:00 बजे ) के अलावा आजकल रात्रि कक्षायें उन बच्चों के लिये प्रारंभ की गई हैं जो भविष्य में मुख्य धारा में सम्मिलित होकर शिक्षा प्राप्त कर सके और बाकि बच्चों के लिये आदर्श स्थापित कर सके !

दर्शन मेहरा

Together we can and we will make the difference!!!