I am Teacher...are you?

 So what do you do on a typical Saturday? Go for a movie, hang out with friends? Well there is nothing wrong in that, but it is important to do some social work as well. Some monetary support to the needy helps bridge the economic gap in society, and some social work where you denote your time for a cause is actually better than monetary support.

 As far as I am concerned, I am enrolled with payroll program in my company since last few years, where some amount of salary is automatically deducted for social cause. I also try to go for social work, whenever I can. I have to work on lot of Saturday's, so I get few chances, but when I get a chance, I definitely go.

 Every MNC company has a CSR branch, so you may want to check out your office mails or with HR for details. Last time when I was in Balewadi, I had gone for a CSR activity. I was on a lookout for some activity in my area again. There was a BAT(Be a teacher)program today at a school which is only 2kms away from my home, so I registered for same.

The timing was 11:30 to 13:30, I reached there. There was another person present who was the POC, he was in the Class 6th, teaching English. Every student was introducing themselves, I stood for a while and then gave a suggestion, POC told me that they want tips and help to speak in English, I said ok, he gave me the charge of the class, and I was there for around couple hours.

After every student finished their introduction, I gave my feedback on what I though about their English, and how they can improve their spoken English. Then, I asked if someone can talk on India, no one volunteered. I understood the level of class was not that great, and needed help. I asked them to remove their textbooks, and we started reading. I asked them who wants to read, students would raise their hand and I would make them read few lines.

Then we did an exercise, where I taught them about interruptions and responses to them when someone is reading. Some students liked English and had also mentioned it in their favorite subject during introduction. Some were not very interested, I made sure each and everyone got a chance to read. I told them if they are not confident\comfortable, they should still try. They will be confident once they try. I also asked the class, that if their friend is reading and not doing well, not to laugh at him, but to help him.

I gave other tips as well to students, on how to improve spoken English. It comes with practice and more reading. One should think in English in order to speak fluently. I also told them, that not everyone would be good in the same thing, and have same interest. However, you need to study to clear exams, and in future you may study what your interest is.

It was a very good experience for me, I like taking class, and this in a way is giving back to society. Helping out the young kids to go towards the correct path, and motivate them to work hard for a bright future. It was a wonderful day out in PMC School, Bavdhan indeed..

Time for some social work.

First of all I am thankful to my dharam fiancé who reminded me, that I had not blogged since long time, and I should write a post soon. I have been busy in office, and also had some minor health problems: cough and cold due to weather change. However, I have a long weekend now, almost 4 days and here I am with my new post.

I have always believed that you must give back to your society in some form. Last year I did some monetary donations for various causes. However, I always wanted to do something non-monetary too, devote my time for some social cause.

‘Outreach’, is Cognizant’s social work entity. They send us regular emails of activities performed by them, and asking for volunteers. I had registered last weekend to go and teach in a school, however I got placed in shift and could not go. This weekend too they sent mail, I had night shift the day before but I was determined to go as I had 3 days off after.

Another factor was that this time it was in my locality, so transportation would not be an issue. We had to go and teach English in nearby government school as written in email. I registered for the event, and got the reminder for the same. I went to the school and met other volunteers, there was a bit of change in plan. We had to actually do survey in the local village.

We were given some forms for the survey. The aim was to encourage villagers to send their kids to school. We were targeting kids between 6 to 14 years. We went to each and every home, an asked them if there are any kids at home in that age and if they are going to school. If not we would encourage them to send to school and take their details for admissions purpose. Surprisingly majority of the homes where kids were there did go to school, it was good to know!!

Couple more questions we asked in the survey. First being if there is toilet in their home or not. Second being do they have water supply. Everyone had water supply, and few did not have personal in-home toilets and used common toilets.

We were split in two teams, each team having 4 volunteers. We roamed for couple of hours in the sun. I had just finished night shift, which was hectic. When I came home I was feeling very exhausted, however I was happy that finally I started what I wanted to do apart from my daily work. Something for the social cause. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a good home, good education and good job. It made me happy that I did some work at ground level, and worked with colleagues to make a difference in the society. As I have said once, ‘There are a lot of talkers’ and takers in this world; we need more of givers and doers!!’