About their world, about our world and something for you …

“Your world is different from us, it is as beautiful, we’d like you to see our world on 2nd October, we invite you to Cognizant Mumbai Campus”, Milind sir was addressing the tired students, teachers and exhausted outreach volunteers. This was after about 6 hours of rigorous stage performances, relay, Kabaddi*, Kho Kho** and rangoli competitions, between the schools of three neighboring villages to decide who gets the opportunity to visit Mumbai for the final round.

The occasion was the Talent hunt at Kharshi, one of the villages situated in the backdrop of the famous Panchgani, Mahabaleshwar area. The Kharshi students were joined by students from adjacent villages Dapavadi and Hatgeghar. Now, one wonders how much energy is left after walking about 5-6 Kms to the school which began early on a Saturday (@ 7am) and then waiting for the outreach members after the school till about 11:30 and considering the school provided lunch is still at least a couple of hours away. Well, read on …

The stage is set



The Audience cum Participants



Welcoming the Outreach members with some traditional cultural items,



Lining up for the competition to begin,

And, now here we go… The girls’ Individual 100 meters,

The 4*100 Relay

Enter the boys,
“Kabaddi” “Kabaddi” “Kabaddi” …

Meanwhile, what are the girls up to?

Rangoli competition …

What else, well the players are off to lunch now, till they are back, bring on the questions,

What is the point of conducting competitions for the kids who find it hard already to come to school, walking several kilometers each way and specially when procuring school bags, notebooks and stationary being the priority till now?

Quite right but, Imagine providing everything of the above said things to a bunch of kids and not letting them know why studying is important? Would that help? Would it help if a talented subset of these kids refrains from the competition just because they think they can’t mingle with the “city people”? And if they decide to stop at the high school level since most of the people they see have done that, not knowing what the world has to offer to the educated ones? Would it help?

No,
So while we do provide them stationary and build classrooms for them, we need to give them a sense of “where they can reach” if they continue their fight against all odds, the whole point of making them compete in the talent hunt is to select a bunch of them get them to our facilities and give them a sense of what can be achieved with education, something they can share with their friends back home. I will talk more on this but for now the kids are back, and it is Kho Kho time,

Gottcha!

And again …

“Kabaddi” “Kabaddi” “Kabaddi”

Can you feel the zeal with which they are playing?No announcement regarding any prizes were made before the competition began that day, because it was not about the prizes but was bringing out that zeal

Of course, we didn’t say anything about outreach members lifting the champions during the victory celebrations either…

Teachers join the girls’ team celebrations.

And so, coming back to the question,

It is to get some of them to visit places; they can reach if they continue on the path of gaining education, gaining knowledge, places like Cognizant which represent that knowledge industry. Simply to inspire them to use the means that we have provided (the stationary and the classrooms) and to kill any complexes they might have resulting from lack of exposure to the urban population as a whole by spending time with them; and then make them to spread the word within their world.

And what’s in it for us?

It’s a sheer delight of lending a hand, cultivating a dream, For Ashwin, it is to make his son, Arnav a part of the noble activity (like many other activities) he does on almost all weekends staying vanished from home. Here’s Ashwin with the youngest member of the volunteers on that day.

And let me tell you it feels awesome,

To spark this kind of enthusiasm

And such Joy

Oh, and the title does say, something for you… well yes, there’s an update***
Well remember the school kit drive? We had kept some of the school kits for display while collecting the donations, so well; they have found their recipients very well, and the notebooks collected during the notebook drive are finding their due beneficiaries too.

So, do say a “Thank you!” to yourself if you were a part of these drives in any way and if you were not, then, Well, what are you waiting for?

-Nikhil D. Purwant.

*Kabaddi – A team contact sport – for more information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabaddi
**Kho Kho – an Indian sport - for more information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kho_kho
***Kids from a high school in Pasli, in Velhe (25-Sept-2010).