At the Crossroads of a Career

    The Career Guidance program conducted at Aler village in ZPHS, Bachannapet, Warangal district, is by far one of the best events conducted by SAHAYA and is surely another feather in our cap. It all started with Sreeram anna, the founder of Sahaya, posting a Whatsapp message on the group asking for the volunteer availability for a career guidance program. The idea sounded very interesting to me and I knew it was an opportunity I will not want to pass up. Hence I impulsively said, “Yeah. I am in”. 

      The very next day, 5^th of March, Sreeram anna, Eshwar anna,our beloved President accompanied by Akhil anna, Ravi teja and Sainath started our journey towards Bachanapeta. We began to discuss how to go about with the proceedings, brainstorming ideas to engage the students. For me, the journey was fun, inspiring, highly motivating, and unforgettable.

After a three-hour ride, we finally reached Bachannapet, Aler!  

       As soon as I entered the school, I could spot a group of students sitting around a tree and being taught a lesson in English. This was something I never witnessed earlier other than in few Telugu movies. But this made me ashamed of my ingratitude towards all the comforts I enjoyed as a kid. And it was rather amusing to be welcomed by the kids murmuring, “Namaskaram Teacher”.

    Without much delay we kick started the session. The Principal of the ZPHS school introduced our team to his staff and students. Sreeram annaya gave them an incisive introduction to Sahaya and its objectives. The man of the show, Akhil Annaya did a splendid job in interacting with the kids. His analytical approach accompanied by a quick wit helped him establish a strong sense of connect with the students. He hosted the entire event with passion and intensity.

     Meanwhile, two of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure of meeting, Sreeram anna and Eshwar anna, spontaneously came up with the idea of a 5 min skit to entertain the kids, impersonating two tenth class pass outs discussing their plans after tenth. The kids laughed their lungs out at this hilarious yet educative skit .This turned out to be the highlight of the entire event.

        Sainath and Ravi Teja put their best foot forward in sharing invaluable information with the kids and proved themselves to be stand out volunteers of Sahaya.

       This program has been conceptualized with the view to highlight the relevance of career guidance among the tenth grade students. We not only threw light on the plethora of opportunities that exist but also briefed them on the amount of effort required to reach their goals.

      Every child has been asked this question-"What do you want to be when you grow up?". Few kids have a lot of goals set and are filled with enthusiasm to pursue their dreams while few of them just follow the crowd and ape their friends' choice. No matter what the case may be, the real battle begins after their tenth grade. In many cases, we observe that the decision of a student is not based on their interests and aptitude, but is hugely influenced by the choice of their peers. To help children understand this point, we conducted a small fun activity wherein we have asked the kids to sign on a piece of paper and compare it with their friends around.  No two people have the exact same signature, and even two people with the same name do not sign in a similar manner. This reflects that every child is unique and hence, their choice also must be as unique as they are. We also emphasized on the importance of tenth class and their board exams which they have to face shortly.  It is at this juncture that they have to make an informed and calculated decision since this choice of theirs will decide the scope of their future. Hence, ideally a student has to pull up his socks right from his ninth grade. Kids need to be motivated to contemplate their strengths and weaknesses. They need to have a clear view of where they see themselves ten years down the line.

         Career guidance for students in the schools is indeed an important program to guide the students in an appropriate direction. The Students in rural communities who progress to Higher Secondary Education have limited exposure. The students are uncertain about which course to choose following their graduation. There is an absence of people in the community who have undertaken higher education studies that can be role models and steer children in the right direction. As a consequence in many cases, the interested and aspiring students cannot achieve their ambition. Hence, we at Sahaya shed light on all the options they have at hand once they pass out of their tenth grade. They were given excellent examination tips and briefed on Health and Hygiene. We organized a small cultural event to help the kids showcase their hidden talents. The kids turned out to be very interactive and way beyond our estimations of their standards. The Principal and the staff were very supportive and were in awe of the ideals of Sahaya. There was immense satisfaction and appreciation in the students and staff, alike.

         We are glad that this session has not just ignited those young minds but also helped them gain the courage to take a stand for their choice.

         At the end, school management complemented us with a memento for our (Sahaya's) self-less activities.

         This event was indeed a huge success and helped us grab media attention. It is a memorable day not just for us but for the entire Sahaya family. I fervently hope that Sahaya remains successful in organizing many many more events like this to foster a sense of awareness in students. 

Planning a Miracle, by Being Realistic..

It all started with an urge to witness the voice of creativity and expression of the kids.

A trial to judge the kids' talent on a single criterion can often leave the work half done. With this in mind, this time we came up with events, which best suit the kids' ability rather than their standards. All it took was a clear explanation of the idea and a proper guidance to nail it down.

Naming the events as Poster-Presentation, JAM(Just A Minute) and Picture Puzzle can be easy but only a person who had dealt with the process knows that it takes many things like formulation of the content, time-management, a lot of practice and a great desire to bring out the best in someone, to justify the task given.

Kids involved had two kinds of thoughts running in their mind..
One.. to fulfill the responsibility that they had taken up voluntarily.
Two.. to grab the rare opportunity they get to prove themselves.

A Plan aiming something bigger, can never have its path smoother. Yes, there were some hurdles like lack of practice sessions, clashing schedules between School management and Sahaya.
Reluctant behavior of students to take up the task, and the deadly "TIME" constraint.

With all these hurdles written on a paper, we decided to hide them under a large sized sticker with the words written on it, with even more larger font as "NEVER GIVE UP". So, we geared up with tick-tick of the clock, got hold of every moment we could get to tick the box "DONE". Though we couldn't tick the box on time, we are still on and on, to make it another tough yet successful story in the diary of Sahaya.

By looking at the participation of the kids and some of the presentations in Shamshiguda school, it was proved that all the efforts put in; made a difference. Each presentation had something special about it and at the end, all that we can do was clap, appreciate and feel proud. With this, it was clear that the students are capable of making miracles and our part is to sketch out a realistic plan to make that miracle happen. And I am glad, we are on the track :)

Put the power in the learner's hands

LOVING WHAT YOU DO IS THE FIRST STEP.

SECOND IS OUR PROVEN PROCESS.

ACCEPTANCE BEFORE CHANGE

Despite years spent in the classroom, more than half of grade Six children cannot read a simple paragraph at the grade 2 level. Yet, after only few sessions of instruction in reading activity, almost 80% of participants become readers, in that they are able to read simple stories.

Every session at Sahaya we start with a strong determination of strengthening the basic Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills which will enable them to pursue their academics in a better way and to gain knowledge by reading and learning things on their own which interests them.

ACCURATE SCHEDULES 

STARTING FROM BASICS

These kids are exceptionally talented to learn multiple languages at their very early ages. Most of these kids struggle with the grammar rules and in turn they start to hate the language itself. The trick is to make them learn spoken language first and then turn them to Grammar but not the other way around.

To equip them with better learning ability we plan different events which try to improve their interpersonal skills and increase their confidence which is much needed for accomplishing their day to day tasks in a better way!

SETTING UP THE READING CHALLENGE

OUR ACTIVITIES TO BRING A DIFFERENCE

Mylibrary: Books are always a great source of learning, if kids are equipped with reading skill then they can select a book of their interest and read. Our target this year is, to make libraries accessible to all the kids of all the schools we are operating in.

PUT THE POWER IN THE LEARNER'S HANDS

Swecha: Giving freedom to the thoughts of kids, through Swecha Events we try to create a platform where they can show their skills and identify their hidden talent. (Read our recent event report here.)

KA Lite: E-Learning and visual learning is one of the more effective ways of making kids understand a given topic. Our plan is to make KA Lite available to kids so that they can go through the basics repeatedly whenever they need and when we are not available.

We want to be a source of guidance to them by answering their queries and as a point of contact where they can reach out for any suggestions.

WORKING TOGETHER FOR OPTIMAL & DESIRED OUTCOMES

At Sahaya we meet like minded graduation pursuing students as volunteers and in the process of teaching they gain and exhibit a great adaptive nature, showcase teamwork, and superb interpersonal skills unknowingly.

Enjoying the essence of learning while teaching.

"We make a living by what we get, but we make life by what we give" given by Winston Churchill suits to every volunteer of Sahaya. The satisfaction which we get being a Sahayan is immense.

The ‘growth mindset’

We are very fortunate to get a chance to organize events for Swecha2K15. Swecha is about what more we can do with young people from an early age to inculcate and teach a passion for continuous learning and growth and observe how they are participating, reading, learning and improving their skills. Events should provide an opportunity for the students to think, imagine, analyze and implement which finally leads to learning.

Students who embrace a ‘growth mindset’ – those who believe they can learn more despite failure -- perform better in events than those who don’t. So, choosing right kind of events plays an important role.

Measuring ‘the learning gain’

The ability to learn, understand and retain are not fixed and can change and increase with effort, diligence and hard work.

Role play and Running dictation were the events conducted for Swecha 2K15. Role play was conducted for VIII and XI which was quite tough for them. It went good in all the schools but it might have been much better if they were given more time for practice in presence of volunteers at Kukatpally school. Student have shown interest and enthusiasm to participate but Telugu medium class students found difficulty while speaking English. They were ready to speak in Telugu and they requested to conduct role play in Telugu in few classes but after explaining the importance of English, they were convinced, tried their best and a few performed beyond our expectations. Few role plays were very impressive by creating suitable environment for given situation creatively.

Running dictation was simple which helped in testing their reading, listening and writing skills. We observed that the words which we gave for running dictation were out of their capability. They need to improve a lot in spellings. But there was an active participation in all the schools for this event.

Our team has done meticulous work in organizing events that rigorously measures the performance of individual students, and include awarding. Turn up from VNR VJIT, Maheshwara, MNR, MLRIT(NSS Team) is the sole reason. Heart-full thanks to everyone who have worked hard to bring such huge group of people into Sahaya. Hope they continue with us.

I’d welcome your thoughts and ideas – what should we do to improve on the concepts, research and evidence discussed above to get better outcomes of education.

-Mounika Kolagani 

I teach because I learn.

On a rather dull Saturday, some time in 2008, I woke up at 10:00 A.M in the morning to find couple of missed calls from an unknown number. Being the curious myself, I called the number back to find who it was, someone from an NGO called me up to visit their school.

I was planning to go to a movie that day, promising my friends that I will be back in 2 hours, went to the school. As Steve Jobs said, you can only connect the dots backward - perhaps missing that movie was the best decision in my life. Six years and counting, Sahaya has become a part of my life. Without humbly bragging about my achievements and other nonsense I will write why I love to teach at Sahaya !!!

LEARNING!!!!

On the first day of Sahaya, I would have never imagined that I will be writing this post.

I learnt how to take photos: I will never call myself a photographer but to create better memories of our efforts, achievements and appreciate fellow volunteers, somebody has to do it. (Un) Fortunately, I got this chance.
Who is doing this better now: Akhilesh Marathi

I learnt to listen: Whenever we ask volunteers to give some ideas, we get a lot of them - A LOT. Patiently listening to all our volunteers and give feedback to them requires good listening skills. Being the bad listener I am, I took almost four years to learn this skill.
Who always does this better: Eshwar Babu

I learnt how to be a team-player: We all love to be individuals, but sometimes it requires a collective effort to make things happen. The greatest example in Sahaya is setting up our first library. Everyone contributed, everyone helped, everyone succeeded.
Who always does this better: Every volunteer in Sahaya

I learnt how to communicate: Yes, I am a poor communicator even now, but I am far better after Sahaya. Talking to people, expressing your ideas, giving feedback require tremendous communication skills. Sahaya is the place where I learnt this.
Who always does this better: Divya Panjala

I(we) learnt to make things happen: Field trip - never done, Science Fair - never done, setting up a library - never done, using khan academy in classes - never done....All these were before Sahaya, we are making all these things happen. And of course, the satisfaction is immense.
Who always does this better: Sahaya

I learnt to make friends:  Sreeram, Srikanth, Dharani, Eshwar, Divya, Phani, pilla Sreeraam, Srinath, Anirudh - if I continue, this list will go on for pages together. Both on and off Sahaya, people who I have met in Sahaya have become "friends forever."

I learnt to learn: All those questions that kids asked, all those issues that we have to resolve, all those initiatives that we have to take - everyday that I am part of Sahaya, I learn something new, something that makes me better than yesterday.

"I teach because I learn and there is no better way."