Learning is a journey and sometimes the best lessons come from the most unexpected places. One of my biggest learning experiences came from a space where roles blurred, and I found myself playing the dual role of a teacher as well as student. In my journey, as a teacher, I owe a lot of my knowledge to my students who taught me a lot every day.
The idea of Sewa Bhav stems from my experiences in my formative years. This experience still instils a profound feeling in me. Allow me to introduce you to Balaramgadi (Fishing Harbour), a small village near Chandipur that makes up the district of Balasore, a coastal town in Odisha. I still think about it to this day. Balaramgadi is a particularly small fish settlement spanning a 10 km-15 km radius, making it one of the biggest fishing hubs in eastern India.
Of the children there, around 90% worked as child labourers. It was a place under process of child labour eradication. I wasn’t sure why the children were working, but their parents made their children work without any known intent. Most of the families belonged to BPL backgrounds. The kids were a prey of addiction to explicit substances due to the easy availability of hard cash at such an early age. However, this availability also helped them learn how to count without any prior mathematics education. I was surprised when I found this while teaching them that their number game was strong without any background information on numbers.
When I first went there, it’s safe to say I was overwhelmed by their living conditions. When my mother first took me there, she coined the place as “a challenging location” because later I came to know that many Non-Profit Organisations had given up teaching and given up on the village as a whole. My mother did not leave hope. She encouraged me to take classes on Saturdays and Sundays since I had already completed my graduation. So, I started teaching while completing my Fine Arts Degree.
One of my key observations in the first month there was that they all had a fixed mindset. So instead of forcing them to study straight away I worked on being accepted. Due to the distance of education from the children, education was almost inaccessible to them. I spread awareness that I would be conducting classes for the kids. I went door-to-door and talked to the parents. I requested them to send their children to learn. I tried to network with the religious and political leaders of the area and convinced them to use their influence to encourage parents to send their kids to learn.
he Panchayat Fund took care of the first meeting with the parents and the kids. The meeting informed the parents of their children's education benefits, which the leaders further supported and endorsed.
When I started the classes, a generous Muslim fish troller owner allotted me a youth clubhouse to teach in. There was no motivating factor for the children to become regular students. So I tried to implement a similar scheme, like the midday meal in the school, which gave nutritious meals like fish and eggs from the child labour scheme fund we got. Initially, they came during lunch hours and would go after they had taken their portions. But with time gradually, their attitude changed. They started to talk to me and sit with me. After three- or four months, school began in full motion with 100% attendance.
The biggest leap these kids made was when they started negotiating to study in the morning and then go to work. So, we negotiated from our end with Govt officials to run the school in the morning hours to accommodate. Within the two years I taught, I found an extended village family. These kids would share their worries and stories with me and go on to share what was happening in their everyday lives, further deepening our bond. Soon enough, I was invited to their special occasions such as weddings and birthdays. Due to our close bonds, I also raised awareness regarding family planning, health benefits available at government official levels, polio, etc.
During the two years I taught, a primary school opened in the area, reducing the distance between education and the kids. After two years, only 20 of the original 40 continued in regular schooling. Of those 20, 5 received full-ride scholarships to complete their education and lead established lives.
It wasn’t easy to reach there, but now that I look back, I believe it’s all worth it. We travelled on the back of a tractor/Jeep from FM College (my home location) to Balaramgadi. While the kind man did try to give us a youth club to teach in, we were borderline harassed by their employers because we were teaching the kids. We lacked teaching spaces and went to teach in godowns and other places.
This experience had such a big impact on me, leaving me inspired and in awe till today. The main idea is that if you set your mind to it, you will find your way to all the keys to all the doors you wish to open, if you are willing. Your values also drive your life, which I still ponder. At such a tender age, when these kids were exposed to such huge amounts of cash, they still opted to learn when they got the chance to do so. I still feel grateful that I had this opportunity for those little kids and their wonderful parents, who gave me this amazing experience to serve them.
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