Students turn teachers

After joining Stephen’s in Delhi last July,Kaur started teaching children in a park in Roop Nagar,North Campus. “It was sometime in November last year that I thought of doing the same here,so I looked around and found a building that was being constructed in front of a park. In the building,there were lots of construction workers who were staying there along with their families,and I had often seen their children roaming on the streets,playing around. I thought that since they don’t go to schools,they can be given some basic knowledge here,” says the 18-year-old. Éclair conducts classes every day for one hour in the evening,from 4-5 pm and 5-6 pm.

Éclair now has about 10 volunteers from both St Stephen’s and SRCC. Each of them is allotted a particular day or days to teach. “Earlier we had about 7-8 children. But they were children of construction workers who migrated after their work was over,so now we have about 5-6 students. The children are in the age group of 4-7 years and don’t go to school. Some of them have older siblings who go to government schools in the vicinity and,while returning from their school,they also come for the classes,” says Kaur.

“They are bright children,whatever lessons we give them,they are very receptive and are enthusiastic to learn more. We try to inculcate in them love for education,” says Priyanka Dass Saharia,a volunteer and Kaur’s classmate.

For Kaur,getting the workers to agree to let them teach their children was not easy. “When I went up to them,they were not sure why they should trust a stranger. Also,since they are migrant labourers,they felt what was the point of this because after a while they would anyway go away. But I was persistent and they agreed to it in the end,” she says.

Kaur and other volunteers are hoping more students would follow their example. “If students from different colleges across the city take this up,then it’ll really make a lot of difference in the lives of these children and help them get admission in schools,” says Alisha Mary Joseph,a volunteer from Stephen’s.