When I joined eVidyaloka in 2015, I only meant to get a job that would allow me a stipulated time for my family. Within a month, it started engulfing me into a feeling of belongingness, responsibility and a lot of joy. Since then there have been times, when I took time off from my family to be with eVidyaloka and what it stands for- children and their well being. It's my 5th year in eVidyaloka. Now I realize what I set out to do while still a student, and lost way in between, have finally found a path in the form of eVidyaloka. Hence, as a tribute to my 5 years long stint in eVidyaloka, I must put together the paths threaded and journeys made here, to be able to relive this phase of my life whenever I would want to look back.
Sometime back, someone had mentioned eVidyaloka as a "feeling". It just made a lot of sense to me. If it wasn't for this feeling of responsibility towards the rural children , who deserves to learn and grow and achieve what they want, all these years would not have have felt like a blink of the eye. That constant sense of responsibility is what drives me in eVidyaloka. This is a responsibility to create that platform for those children who are equally deserving to learn and achieve what they want in life.
This "feeling" however has not come in a day. It is a result of knowing these children, their zeal and grit, and along with them, the people striving to help them in whatever ways possible. These people are the local NGO partners of eVidyaloka and their field staff. I can never get over that overwhelming experience of my first field visit on April 2016. Totally blank, and scared within to travel in an unknown land alone, were my only thoughts that pervaded till I set foot on the Giridih railway station platform.
It was 4am when my train reached. As I got down, I found this lanky boy smiling and waving at me calling me mam. All this while he was Diwakarji for me, a man, who was handling all Giridih schools as a field coordinator. Little did I know that he was this young lad. A sudden feeling of trust and relationship that was professional yet very personal connected us. Since then, we set out on a journey, thats just getting better with time.
In sweltering heat and dust of an April in Jharkhand villages, I and Diwakarji, made my first ever visit to rural India. Each school we visited gifted me a mouthful of smiles of children and gratitude of the school staff. It made me humble. It made me emotional. And it made me belief that I should do more and meaningfully more for these children. I realized, how our small efforts means so much for the children that they make us feel almost like celebrities when we visit them. While an embarrassed me shied away from any kind of limelight, my plans to do things more constructively and meaningfully for these children had started taking shape. I wanted to see them study, become what they wanted to be and most importantly improve their social and economic circumstances.
I came back disturbed, spent a few sleepless nights where visions of the social and economic conditions of the villages and school infrastructure kept me awake. It was tough. From there, today I take a lot of pride when that coy Diwakarji is heading the Giridih cluster as the coordinator and the children are confident and eloquent enough to built science working models as solutions to their local problems and explaining them to anyone and everyone. This pride emerges out of knowing these amazing and inspiring souls, who are just unstoppable. They just needed a platform like eVidyaloka to prove their worth.
Over the past 5 years, eVidyaloka has also evolved and and grown bigger and better. We are now able to support these children in many ways than one. While, basic education still remains our focus, we have ventured into aspects such as Social Emotional Learning, Scholarship training and professional workshops for the field staff. Both our donors and partner NGOs have stuck to us and supported us through thick and thin. So much goodwill has pervaded over us as an organisation during my stint, that I truly value the platform that eVidyaloka has given me to evolve as a person and a responsible citizen.
Raising a toast to that "feeling" of eVidyaloka, and wish we all understand and keep the mission alive for times to come...
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