Happy New Year from the Children @ Prayas

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

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

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

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 ...

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Inauguration of Vocational Classes at AID Prayas

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

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

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

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 :)

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 !!!!

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

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..

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!!!