For helping educate, is empowering an entire generation

Education is the only sustainable way that you can empower someone. And thus, in February 2014, I dared to fill in the form of Teach ForIndia Fellowship. Today, I’m teaching, 40 little 2^nd graders at a Municipal School in Kurla (Mumbai).

After working for a year in a small PR consultancy, I realized it wasn't my cup of tea. A knack for teaching, too much love for kids, and a desire to make a difference, made me join Teach For India.

My Classroom is full of love and joy. My kids are enthusiastic, they love art, colors, dance, answering and asking questions. They come from the communities around the school. Some also come from communities away from school.

My kids belong to the age-group of 7-8 year olds. This is the age when a child learns to become independent, develop values and mindsets, starts to build greater physical strength, shows rapid development in mental skills, begins to work in groups and express himself/herself in different ways.

Keeping this in mind, I have designed my presence in their lives. From Academic Achievement, Values and mindsets to Exposure and Access, I’m here to provide them with everything I can for empowering them to become independent and responsible citizens of India.

My vision for my kids is: they will be able to differentiate the wrong and the right, be passionate about whatever they do, and be able to make a difference to the world around them in whatever small ways they can.

For this, here are some things I’m doing in my class:

1.     *  We and Our Heroes: Our Class will learn about fictional and non-fictional heroes, their work, their life, their people and their values. We will identify and meet the heroes in our community and learn from them. We will have at-least one idol, which will inspire us to reach our individual goals more efficiently.

* We are a team: We will learn to work in a team, respect each other, and work hard to achieve our goals. We will demonstrate our class values outside our class too. We are also going to play lot of football.

* The ‘WHY’ behind our learning’s: We will know the why behind everything we learn in class, our class rules, class consequences, values etc. We will ask questions and seek to learn every moment.

I signed-up for this single-handedly but to achieve this vision and the goals I need your help. Not only do I need a lot of stationary, books, I need finances for classroom resources, field trips and other logistics.

Your contribution will not only empower 40 kids, but also empower those 40 kids to empower other several people in their communities. You will help in empowering the future. This is a movement, to being a change, to make a difference; it’s a movement towards education equity. If we all believe in this movement, trust me, one day all children will receive an excellent education.

Though I can’t afford to return the favor, but I promise to keep you updated about the happenings in my class. Also my kids love meeting new people, and you are welcome in my class anytime. You will also receive cute drawings from my kids (They absolutely love making gratitude cards) for your generous contributions. And what is more valuable than those smiles.

You can help me in many other ways. Reach out to me with your suggestions and questions through mails at ruchika.thakkar2014@teachforindia.org.  I will be glad to hear from you.

Hoping to get your love and support.

PS: Sharing a link to my Flipkart Wishlist : http://www.flipkart.com/wishlist?link=home_wishlist

I need a Football coach urgently. 

Love,

Ruchika Thakkar

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski

Abusing the innocence

She was as young as a 6^th grader. Had recently started to hit puberty and was experiencing the anxieties she couldn't understand. She felt like she was losing herself to the constant don’t do this, don’t do that of the society. She was confused, happy, anxious, sad, angry everything at the same time. She felt dirty, clean, pretty, ugly everything together. She was not an adult neither a kid any more, and this often put her in the state of trance.

Summer vacations are always the time to have fun, enjoy, visit new places and meet relatives. Like every year, this time she will be meeting her uncles and aunts, and she was very excited about it. She was going to meet her mom’s uncle and aunt and their family this year. She was meeting them for the first time. She had packed a day before and was super excited to leave the following morning. She had heard great stories about her uncle and aunt, they had spent a great amount of time in a foreign country, and recently their son had returned from abroad, Mom had told her he had brought lots of chocolates for her. She had never expected that this visit will be so memorable that the scenes from the two days she spent there, will haunt her all her life.

They had reached the house and hour back. She was introduced to everyone there and was very happy with all the chocolates, games, gifts and so much delicacies that was offered to her. Soon, she got bored of the constant yapping of her mom and aunt. Noticing her boredom, her aunt asked her to go inside and play on the computer for a while. You can’t imagine the happiness on her face when her aunt mentioned COMPUTER. Those were the days when everyone did not own a computer, and those who owned one were not allowed to sit and play on them most of the times, as computers those days were only for work. She jumped from her seat and went inside. While trying to figure out how to switch on the computer, her uncle came to her rescue. A man in his 50s, sat beside her while she was busy playing a game. Slowly made her sit in his lap, put his hands around her waist, and in no time his hands were inside her t-shirt, caressing her tiny growing breasts. She sat there in disgust, in confusion, in pain for 15 long minutes, after which she just got up and went to her mother, sat there in silence till dinner was served. The man continued to sit beside her whenever he got a chance the entire evening, picking up magazines are showing her images of scantily clad women, describing them to be sexy. She was scared, could not move, could not utter a word, just wanted to run away from that house and never return back.

That night she had a hard time sleeping. And as she got some sleep, it was morning already. And to add to the horror and pain, as soon as she opened her eyes she could feel that man’s hands inside her night-dress. She could hear his voice, saying, “Beta, sleep, this will give you a nice sleep”. She got up pushing him behind and went to her mother, asking her to leave from that place at once. She kept throwing tantrums until her mom finally decided to leave. The entire time her mom kept dismissing her tantrums by saying, “She is very close to her father, can’t stay away from him even for a night you see”.

That incident still haunts her. She has kept quiet about it for years together. That uncle is avoided in most of the family functions, by most of her female cousins, probably because she was not the only victim. 

Letter to the Boss!

The mail, that one young female had the balls to mail her boss sometime back. I'm quite impressed, I'm sure you will too! 

Dear Sir,

I have been working with you since past 8 months now, and I’m sad to say that nothing really has inspired me till now. Considering that this is my first full-time job, I have been really depressed and unhappy with the fact that I will be taking almost nothing with me when I will leave this place, which is very unfortunate.

Kindly, don’t take the above sentences in the negative; because those are just to make the whole environment I have been working in with the others a little positive. Everyone sticks to a job, if that interests him/her and inspires/motivates him/her  to learn and improve, but here, I haven’t found much of a motivation, there is nothing different that this workplace has given me, and the little hopes that I have from this place is what is prompting me to write this mail to you.

Firstly, since past 3 months, I have been getting the salary late (for whatever reason it might be) , in-spite of the fact that you know I don’t reside with my family, nor is my family very well to do to feed me and pay my rent and other expenses.

Parents educate their children, so that they can earn and live a independent life, I won’t want to ask my parents for money every month, what’s the point of calling myself a PR Executive if I have to still walk up to someone for money? I hope you understand this well, as you are an independent businessman yourself

Now, this month again, I haven’t received my salary, my house owner is yelling at the top of his voice outside my door each day I return home from office for the rent. My tiffin-wala has recently lost his father, and I have kept him hanging for the money (I’m sure he needs the money more than I or you need it), it gets more depressing, as it does not allow my consciousness to breathe.

Secondly, past 8 months, and I’m still get 13,000/-. I don’t think that is enough for the amount of work I have been doing which includes content, client servicing, Media relations, social media (which I have stopped recently, simply because I’m tired of everything) sometimes helping with the banner, making presentations & going for other meetings. According to me I deserve a raise.

Lastly, 8 months and still no offer letter, requesting you to consider that too.

So I would request you to reconsider employing me here. Timeliness, a Good work environment, organized work, and appreciation is all I’m asking for. And I’m sure my colleagues will agree with all the above. It’s already 10^th today, and unfortunately I haven’t received my salary cheque which will take another 3-4 days to credit.

If you feel I’m not good enough, ask me to leave, I will leave with all my dignity. If you think I have been rude above, I would request you to step in my shoes for a while, and if you think I’m justified, do consider this mail seriously.

The final decision is yours. You can chose to ignore, or act upon this mail, either positively or negatively.

Regards,

A fellow human-being