I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss the hardships of the students who attend the charitable school where I have been volunteering. If you have been keeping up with the Ek Koshish blog, I have not been teaching there during the month of June, because it is currently their summer vacation; but, starting July 1st, we will be starting classes again, and I will continue my English grammar lectures with the help of a Hindi-speaking English teacher. Everyday at the end of school, I would wait outside for a "rickshaw waala" (what we call the person who drives the "rickshaw," depicted in the photo above) while the children, who would hang around school after classes finished, would engage in conversation with me. The children explained how they really enjoyed coming to school, since they have a safe place to play with their friends, eat two meals, learn computers, and relish other entertaining subjects. Originally the children were not so interested in learning English, but, after my arrival, many of them felt urged to learn more English so that they could interact with me and learn more about the world outside of their little village in Faridabad, Delhi NCR. The students also explained that, though there is a bus that many students use to go home, not every student can be picked up by the bus: They have to walk about ten kilometers (approximately 6.2 miles) every day to school, in the blistering heat of 50˚C (122˚F), each way. It was a rude awakening to hear about their rough lives every day, considering that they enjoy walking to school, because home must be that much worse. In many cases, the children's parents cannot afford to feed the children at all, and so the children go each day to eat two meals per day at the school, apart from Sundays, when the school is not open. It is my dream that these brave Indian students can be successful and can communicate fluently in English: Until then, my work here won't be done!
SO COOL!!!!!
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