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Making a difference in lives of neglected children
The question is how much the students are really learning in an academic year? Anuradha Rao, child rights activist and head of Baalala Hakkula Sangham, Telangana claims, “Children are completely being ignored in the government-aided school. They only check the attendance but not what they have learnt in the classroom.”
‘There are many children in our country who do not receive proper education which might be due to numerous reasons. Sadly many government-aided schools are increasing the strength of students but are not concentrating on the quality of education’
The question is how much the students are really learning in an academic year? Anuradha Rao, child rights activist and head of Baalala Hakkula Sangham, Telangana claims, “Children are completely being ignored in the government-aided school. They only check the attendance but not what they have learnt in the classroom.”
“As per the Right To Education Act, until Class 10, there should not be any detention. Many government teachers take this rule as an advantage and not keen on the quality of education,” she rues.Solving this problem for children Make A Difference (MAD), a youth-driven non-profit organisation that is spread across the country in 23 cities, has taken responsibility to teach kids.
MAD Hyderabad is associated with seven shelter homes and caters to a total of 333 children with a volunteer base of about 400. “The MAD volunteers work with children who live in orphanages, street shelters and have very few opportunities to learn English. More importantly, they have no role models to look up to. MAD addresses both of these problems with their means of the Ed Support Project,” says Abhinaya Murthy, a volunteer with MAD. “I was 17 when I joined MAD as teacher volunteer in Nagpur.
To be frank, one of the most amazingly humbling experiences was working with children and seeing how they grew and responded to you and your lessons. It has been five years since, and as I grew within the organisation, much like the children I work with, I realise that I was a small cog in the big wheel of change that is 3,500 volunteers strong in over 23 cities,” says SneheeI Biswal, Director of PR and communications.
“I see a bright future for every child in MAD. For me they are people who inspired me to do the work every day. What connects me to them is their desire to learn and my yearning to teach–a strong bond that stands the test of time,” he adds. Sharing her experience with Young Hans, Srivalli, Hyderabad team leader of MAD says, “In the second year of engineering, I found MAD interesting and one of my friends told me about the MAD after rigorous selection process.
I got to know that I will be teaching English to kids. I thought I’d probably become a part of the journey where I’d help kids improve their academic process and make them have a brilliant grip of the subject. But, all this time, I realised that what I taught my kids is in no measure equivalent to what they taught me.”
“I believe that my presence in the center for my kids is less of that of a teacher and more of a sibling. I have become a confidante to them, a moral support system and somebody they can bank on at any point in time. As the city team leader this year, my impact got multiplied,” she adds.
