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“Nayi Disha gave me a brand new route,” Bappan Das tells me. It’s a Saturday morning, a superb time to name him, I believe. However Bappan has a busy day forward. “I’m about to begin my Class 11 exams,” he tells me. “Subsequent yr I might be in Class 12.”
He sounds excited on the feat, and he ought to be.
The journey that Bappan goes on to relate confirms my perception that schooling was as soon as a distant dream for this younger boy. “After I was 9 months previous, my dad and mom and I got here to Gurugram from West Bengal. I by no means went to highschool till I used to be eight years previous,” he says.
His narratives illustrate the division of his life into two phases — early childhood recollections characterised by battle, and a happier interval after he turned eight.
After transferring to Gurugram, Bappan began attending courses on the Nayi Disha NGO — began in 2014 by Seema Seth — proper close to the slum cluster the place he lived together with his dad and mom in Harijan Basti in DLF Section V, Gurugram. “We learnt so many topics,” he tells me excitedly. “Seema ma’am would take us in all places! We might play, examine, and have enjoyable.”
Although at present a scholar on the VIDYA NIOS in Gurugram, Bappan shares that the inspiration of his instructional pursuits was laid at Nayi Disha. From a younger boy disinterested in schooling to now an adolescent who harbours desires of turning into an engineer sometime, Bappan’s story makes Seema smile, and watching him scale makes her really feel very proud.
This is only one instance of how diligence can change a life. “You recognize, I by no means imagined doing this,” Seema is modest.
However I need to admit as she chronicles her journey from an HR skilled with 30 years below her belt, to now on the helm of making a change within the lives of underprivileged youngsters, I’m intrigued at what level one path segued into the opposite.
“It began the day I had a dialog with a rickshaw driver,” she responds.
‘Ma’am aap college khol do’
In 2013, Seema, who’s now in her late sixties, had had sufficient of the company world. She give up.
However come night, daily, she would hail an auto to the Authorities college in Sikanderpur the place she would spend the following few hours instructing English to the main part. “It was one thing that I used to be deeply obsessed with. Whereas I used to be working, many a time I’d take day without work my coaching assignments to show right here,” she shares.
It was most of the time the identical rickshaw driver who would ferry her backward and forward from the college. And someday he broke the ice.
“Do you cost to show the scholars right here?” Mahendra requested her.
“No, I do it at no cost,” she replied.
“I reside in Harijan Colony the place there are many kids who loaf around,” he defined. “Their dad and mom are maids, drivers, and grocers. They depart for work within the morning and return late within the night. Ma’am aap waha college khol do (Ma’am open a college there).”
Seema was intrigued.
“Effectively, if you happen to handle to search out me an area to show, I’ll,” she stated. And inside a few weeks, Mahendra did precisely that.
Thus began Nayi Disha on 19 March, 2014, in an previous warehouse in the course of the Harijan Colony with 35 kids. Since its inception, the NGO and Seema have tried to create a linkage for these underprivileged youngsters into mainstream education by offering them with the tutorial basis they want.
Remodeling youngsters’ lives in real-time
The impact of time is clear within the desires of Nayi Disha. What began as a handful of children being taught English in a small room within the basti has now scaled to over 100 youngsters unfold throughout eight rooms studying a wide range of topics — English, Hindi, arithmetic, environmental science, artwork, computer systems and theatre.
Extra astounding than the youngsters’s participation has been the help of the dad and mom, notes Seema. “They’ve begun to see an enchancment of their kids,” she says, including that this realisation deepened throughout the lockdown that ensued amid the COVID pandemic.
“Due to on-line courses, it so occurred that oldsters had been at house whereas the youngsters had been studying. We might ship them actions and worksheets to unravel. The dad and mom ended up studying so much within the cut price,” she chuckles.
On the finish of the lockdown, all the basti knew the times of the week, months of the yr, and multiplication tables on the information of their fingers.
“The dad and mom obtained to see how a lot worth we’re including to the youngsters’s lives. They realised that their kids really examine at Nayi Disha and that there are people who find themselves spending devoted time with them,” she shares.
This variation in mindset is refreshing. The dad and mom’ new view of the NGO as an area of studying, in distinction to seeing it as a creche, is a win in response to Seema.
College is freedom for these kids. Proper from the 9 am meeting and the circle time — the place they share their observations in regards to the climate, discuss their day and categorical themselves — to the chatter on the mid-day meal distribution and English courses which are performed by volunteer college students from schools throughout Gurugram, every second is a celebration of studying.
However, the youngsters love theatre classes essentially the most.
“It makes them assured and outgoing. It encourages them to talk up,” she explains. “That is nice as a result of we seen that quite a lot of them are shy and reluctant to talk.”
However at 1.30 pm when the youngsters file to return house, brighter than the smile on any of their faces, is the one on their instructor’s face.
Nisha, who has been with Nayi Disha because it began, is Seema’s rock. “Seema ma’am was searching for a instructor and somebody put me in contact together with her. For the reason that begin, I’ve been instructing these kids many topics and have watched these kids develop. I keep in mind them being unruly, however with time, we taught them etiquette and manners together with different topics. They’ve picked this stuff up properly,” says Nisha.
Maintaining abreast with the instances
For 10 years now, the eight rooms have been bustling with college students’ chatter, laughter, and cheer. Nonetheless, the success of the mannequin is overshadowed by the problem of retention of the youngsters.
Elaborating, Seema says, “The individuals who reside in these slum clusters have their roots in distant villages of India. So, on the drop of a hat they depart for the village — generally as a result of somebody is getting married, different instances as a result of they’re constructing a house there, or they should are likely to their fields.”
She provides, “The kids miss months of faculty after which come again clean.”
This creates a dilemma for Seema and the crew of 12 academics about whether or not to take the youngsters again or not. “If we don’t take them again, we might be encouraging them to be loitering round. If we take them again, we must put in an additional quantity of effort into instructing them the similar ideas once more,” she shares.
However Seema all the time chooses the latter.
With the recognition that Nayi Disha gained via the years, she began one other outlet at Indira Colony with 5 rooms. At present, 65 college students examine there.
As soon as college students attain Class 5, they have to take an entrance take a look at that may give them entry into one of many public colleges below NIOS. Those that clear the doorway are admitted into colleges — resembling Delhi Public College, Shiksha Kendra, SRF Vidyalaya and Lotus Petal Basis.
“The scholars are being skilled within the NCERT curriculum even whereas they’re at Nayi Disha,” she emphasises.
She provides that instructor trainings are performed as soon as a month to verify if the syllabus is being adopted, and to know any challenges the academics are dealing with. “There’s additionally a parent-teacher assembly on the final Saturday of each month.”
Coming by funding to maintain Nayi Disha going is a problem. However, not for Seema. “I’ve develop into a believer that there’s any person within the universe who’s all the time listening to my ideas. At any time when I consider one thing which is for the youngsters, it all the time finally ends up figuring out,” she shares.
Circling again to the story of Mahendra — the auto driver due to whose request the plan was set into movement — Seema says it was future. “Mahendra had misplaced his dad and mom within the 1999 floods of Odisha and had come to Delhi as an orphan. He’d all the time needed to review however by no means had the prospect. Coaxing me to begin a college for teenagers in slum clusters was his manner of constructing certain he may play a task in another person’s dream coming true.”
And at this time, Nayi Disha is the lacking piece of the puzzle.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
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