“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 shall 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 “After I was 9 months outdated, my mother and father and I got here to Gurugram from West Bengal. I by no means went to high school till I used to be eight years outdated,” he says.
His narratives illustrate the division of his life into two phases — early childhood reminiscences characterised by wrestle, 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 along with his mother and father in Harijan Basti in DLF Section V, Gurugram. “We learnt so many topics,” he tells me excitedly. “Seema ma’am would take us in every single place! We’d play, examine, and have enjoyable.”
Although presently a pupil on the VIDYA NIOS in Gurugram, Bappan shares that the inspiration of his academic pursuits was laid at Nayi Disha. From a younger boy disinterested in schooling to now an adolescent who harbours goals 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 already know, I by no means imagined doing this,” Seema is modest.
However I have to admit as she chronicles her journey from an HR skilled with 30 years beneath 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 faculty 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, day by day, she would hail an auto to the Authorities faculty in Sikanderpur the place she would spend the subsequent 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 might take day off 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 at some point he broke the ice.
“Do you cost to show the scholars right here?” Mahendra requested her.
“No, I do it totally free,” she replied.
“I reside in Harijan Colony the place there are many kids who hang around,” he defined. “Their mother and father are maids, drivers, and grocers. They go away for work within the morning and return late within the night. Ma’am aap waha faculty khol do (Ma’am open a college there).”
Seema was intrigued.
“Nicely, if you happen to handle to search out me an area to show, I’ll,” she mentioned. And inside a few weeks, Mahendra did precisely that.
Thus began Nayi Disha on 19 March, 2014, in an outdated 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.
Reworking youngsters’ lives in real-time
The impact of time is clear within the goals 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 mother and father, notes Seema. “They’ve begun to see an enchancment of their kids,” she says, including that this realisation deepened in the course of the lockdown that ensued amid the COVID pandemic.
“Due to on-line courses, it so occurred that oldsters have been at house whereas the youngsters have been studying. We’d ship them actions and worksheets to unravel. The mother and father ended up studying quite a bit within the discount,” 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 ideas of their fingers.
“The mother and father received to see how a lot worth we’re including to the youngsters’s lives. They realised that their kids truly 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 mother and father’ new view of the NGO as an area of studying, in distinction to seeing it as a creche, is a win based on Seema.
Faculty 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 specific themselves — to the chatter on the mid-day meal distribution and English courses which might be carried out by volunteer college students from schools throughout Gurugram, every second is a celebration of studying.
However, the youngsters love theatre periods probably 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 lots 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 trainer’s face.
Nisha, who has been with Nayi Disha because it began, is Seema’s rock. “Seema ma’am was searching for a trainer 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 these items up properly,” says Nisha.
Retaining abreast with the instances
For 10 years now, the eight rooms have been bustling with college students’ chatter, laughter, and cheer. Nevertheless, 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 go away for the village — typically 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 college after which come again clean.”
This creates a dilemma for Seema and the staff of 12 lecturers about whether or not to take the youngsters again or not. “If we don’t take them again, we shall 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 identical ideas once more,” she shares.
However Seema all the time chooses the latter.
With the recognition that Nayi Disha gained by way of the years, she began one other outlet at Indira Colony with 5 rooms. At the moment, 65 college students examine there.
As soon as college students attain Class 5, they have to take an entrance check that can give them entry into one of many public faculties beneath NIOS. Those that clear the doorway are admitted into faculties — akin to Delhi Public Faculty, Shiksha Kendra, SRF Vidyalaya and Lotus Petal Basis.
“The scholars are being educated within the NCERT curriculum even whereas they’re at Nayi Disha,” she emphasises.
She provides that trainer trainings are carried out as soon as a month to test if the syllabus is being adopted, and to grasp any challenges the lecturers 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 turn out to be a believer that there’s someone 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 understanding,” 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 mother and father within the 1999 floods of Odisha and had come to Delhi as an orphan. He’d all the time wished to review however by no means had the possibility. Coaxing me to begin a college for teenagers in slum clusters was his approach of creating positive he might play a task in another person’s dream coming true.”
And as we speak, Nayi Disha is the lacking piece of the puzzle.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
