Newsletter September 2011

BIT Students in Ekal Schools

Shreya Bansal from USA, narrates her experience of Ekal Vidyalaya visit

Shreya Bansal, a teenager from Florida started ‘CHART Ekal’, charity art classes that donate 100% of the tuition fees to the Ekal Foundation. She has raised and donated over $5,000 and has sponsored 15 schools so far. Her student art can be seen at: http://www.shreyabansal.com/Student-Art.html. She is also an active member of the RICE Club that collects funds for Ekal. This summer Shreya visited an Ekal school near Hyderabad and following was her experience.

My stomach rolls and the wheels churn as we rumble uncomfortably towards the dilapidated village nestled distantly among the trees. For the first time since I started my quest to fundraise 15 schools with the Ekal Foundation, I am going to actually see the purpose, the people, behind my goal. I am going to visit a school begun by Ekal. As we enter the village, it is clear that visitors here are rare commodities. Shock and curiosity greet us on every face and as we pull up to the school, and it seems as though every adult in the vicinity crowds around our still gurgling vehicle. The adults seem surprised when we describe our purpose there. When they hear that I raise money for Ekal, and helped in sponsoring their village school, they are elated. We ask to visit a class as we are just in time for the start of lessons, 6:00 in the evening. The classes are designed after work hours as most spend time helping their parents earn a living.

Our bulky Nikons hang awkwardly around our necks as we walk towards their class. It was beautiful. There were about 45 kids sitting knee to knee on the floor, faces raised and eyes all closed as they belt Ragas and Shlokas by heart. One of the adults whispers in broken Hindi that these evening classes provided the kids the education they lacked from their parents or the neighboring village school – an education rich in culture and here his voice cracks with pride, schooling in literacy. These kids, from as young as 5 to as old as 13, come every evening to learn to read. We spend the evening with the kids that day, laughing, smiling, and watching a few shows off their writing and reading expertise. It wasn’t a lot of time, certainly less than I’d hoped for, but it was one of the most magical nights I have ever spent. We communicated largely through smiles and pantomime as neither could speak the other’s language, but we talked all the same. And when we opened our bags to show them the ribbon-wrapped Cadbury chocolate bars we had brought for them, their expressions were priceless. Their faces were like light bulbs, brilliant and warm, each giving off his or her own light and illuminating more than just the room; those expressions lit up my heart.

It will go down on my transcripts and college applications that I did in fact gain X number of community service hours for teaching art classes and that I raised X amount of money for schools in rural India, but that doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t convey the pride of seeing a child stand on his toes to write on the board his first full sentence or the satisfaction of seeing a girl chew her tongue in concentration as she reads her first book. It doesn’t explain the pride you get from seeing a group of strangers pouring their hearts out to learn and teach, thousands of miles from your home, but on your native land all the same, and knowing that you had a part, however small, in helping that happen. May be my money did not come to this specific school but somewhere, somewhere within my Indian homeland, 15 teachers were raising their voices to teach and 15 groups of kids were raising their faces to greet words of encouragement and education. Somewhere, I am changing someone’s future. Somewhere I am giving a child a chance.

Howard Hand from USA Visits Ekal School

An elite group of Rotarians Adopt our Vidyalayas