My First Visit...

My First Visit to a Tent School for our NGO - Punya.

It was an amazing experience and so much learning. The feeling one gets in helping someone is inexplicable in words.

Here is the Visit to a Tent School, Thubarahalli, Varthur Main Road, Near SKR Counltry, Bangalore. 

Since Bangalore is not a  known place for me so finding out the above address took me quite a lot of time. It is in out skirts of Bangalore. The plan to visit the place was made for Saturday but Mr Govindappa, in-charge of the School informed that Saturday is a holiday for kids being a meeting in school. I decided to reach out to the place on Friday itself.

It was 12.30 and my first day and 5 mins to the new project :-) I was informed about the place and client by my Manager and Lead and in turn when asked..."Do you have any Questions??" I asked them..."Can i join back the project at 3.00 PM?". There was a complete silence in the Conference room. And i was informed.."Since it is  your first day, you are being excused..." :-)

And there i started for my First Visit to a Tent School. I had 2 hours of time to visit the place, meet everyone, gather all information and reach back to office. On inquiring the people there they informed that the school is 11 kms from my office, without giving a second thought i sat in an auto and booked him for bringing me back to my office too.

I started my journey by 12.55 PM. I asked the auto driver to take shortcut if possible. We reached the place by 1.17PM. I asked the auto driver to wait till i come back.

I went inside the school, their was a Temple straight in front of the entrance gate. On the right side were the classes and Staff room. I went near the Staff room, 2 lady teachers were having their lunch. I inquired with one of them that is this Tent School which Mr Govindappa handles. She informed it is the Main School, Tent school is a little far from here and Mr Govindappa comes here once in a week.

I decided to talk to the teachers about the Main School and Tent School. I told her that I am from an NGO and we will like to help and support them with their requirements and needs. I asked her about the infrastructure and facilities in the main school, She told that they get funded with most of the things. I asked her how many Students they had and upto which class the School was, She informed that there are in total 92 Students, 47 Girls and 45 Boys. I felt happy to see the number of girls being more then boys. They had class 1 to 5. The number of teachers being 2 regular and 1 girl from some IT firm comes to teach. She said that they need more teachers as it was difficult for both of them to manage all 5 classes. She informed that they were supported and funded by several sources for Books, Notebooks, Stationary, Water and Food. I inquired about their needs which they felt was lacking. She informed that water provided was at times not sufficient and separate Almira's to keep the Books and Notebooks for each class.

After gathering all requirements from the Main School, i asked her the way to the Tent School. She sent a Student of Class 5 to accompany me till the Tent School. It was some 500mts inside from the Main School. The Student's name was Anant and he knew Hindi a bit so it helped me to talk to him. He was bare foot, I asked him why he did not wear any footers? He did not answer, just smiled. I asked him about his other friends at School, he told that most of his school friends did not have the footers. I asked him about the studies and facilities. He told everything was good and he liked studying. As he was in 5th Std so I asked him where he is going to study after 5th. He told me that their school has one more branch where they have 6th std.

We proceeded to the Tent School, that area had all construction going on, and all dumps of construction material all over. We reached the Tent School, it was all slum area, all workers had their temporary roofs(houses) there. The Tent school was one room class, with a roof of steel sheet. The room had one table, one Almira and 2 chairs. Most of the small kids were running or moving here and there inside-outside. There were 2 ladies, one was the Teacher and another was a Volunteer. The Teacher already knew about my Visit. As soon as i reached their She welcomed me inside the Class and all kids sang in chorus "Good Afternoon Miss..". :-)
I told her that i just want her 10 mins, She did not knew much Hindi or English so conversation became a bit tough and i felt bad on that part. I had so many Questions and did not get how to ask her. Trying the best with words and sign languages i got some information from her. In all they had 50 students as per their register, but I saw only 12 kids in the class that time. Their were 2 boards, some old torn charts, chalks, slates for kids, 2 buckets of water. All stationary, books, note books and food was provided to them by some sources.

I asked to the teacher why the students don't have any notebooks and books in their hands right now, she informed that they have completed course from books and note books are over and they were studying verbally at present. I asked her that what they do when their Stationary is over before time, She informed that, they get everything once in a year only.

I asked some students to read out whatever was written on the board and then asked some of them to write down their names on my diary.

She complained about the water facility and a proper toilet. She said that they either had to use the main school's Toilets(which was some 500mts away) or they need to search some corners their itself (which they did mostly).

All students were very enthusiastic over learning about the new things. They were proactive in speaking and asking questions. When i was leaving the class all of them again sang in chorus.. "Bye Bye Miss...". That was real cheering. That time the language problem gave me an incomplete feeling. :-( And i decided to visit the place again with someone who can fill out the language gap and help me out in understanding their needs properly.

I started back to the Main School, Anant was waiting for me all this time to help me back as we took all shortcut ways to reach out to the Tent School. We reached the Main School, the post lunch class had already begun, so i informed the Teacher in Sign language that she can continue teaching and thanked her for her support.

The auto driver had slept in the Auto. I woke him up and we started back to office. I reached office by 2.10 and i rushed to my ODC and took a sign of relief on reaching before time.

Thinking about my overall first visit, it gave me a self satisfaction and enthusiasm to do more and more for these Kids. I hope my next visit to the place be soon..

I will appreciate if someone can proactively support us in this regard..
Thank you :-)