Wednesday, June 2, 2010

I TEACH FOR INDIA






A lot of people have helped me through out the selection and decision process of TEACH FOR INDIA and I want to do the same for future applicants. I intend to develop an online resource house which would inform people about the movement and how they can be a part of it. There are various myths surrounding the social sector which stop a lot of individuals from venturing into the sector and live the life of their dreams, I plan to burst those myths and help people do what they really want to do. I wish to achieve this by sharing my experiences as TFI fellow.

Through the stories of others I wish to showcase that we are all burdened by heavy expectations but that didn’t make us forget the delights of dreaming and there are many who stepped into ventures that will carve the future of India such as TFI.

To stay connected with me at I Teach For India click here.

Friday, April 9, 2010

This is Entrepreneur Power!!

Entrepreneur Alieu Conteh started building a cellular network in the Democratic Republic of the Congo … when it was still in the midst of its civil war in the 1990s. He couldn’t get foreign manufacturers to ship cellular towers into the country with rebel soldiers around, so he got local men to weld scrap metal into a makeshift tower. Demand exploded for Conteh’s phones, and in 2001 he formed a joint venture with the South African firm Vodacom.

One illiterate fisherwoman who lives in the Congo without electricity relies on her cell phone to sell her fish. She can’t put the fish in a freezer, so she keeps them alive on a line in the river until customers call to place an order.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Walk with me...

at Peace with the nature
far from the world
Dreaming a thousand dreams
He opened his eyes
learnt his lesson
walked with many, shared with many
hands in hand he loved them all
for they will be with him
through it all...




Wednesday, March 17, 2010

"Touchwood" I feel lucky!!!

Last semester in college, there is something called a study oriented project that I am doing these days on the social sector which in itself is vaguely defined and until yesterday i.e. when almost more than 3/5th of my semester is over, there isn't much that I have done which would be called work and hence my midsem is almost screwed.


Anyways, so Yesterday when I went to my project guide she asked me to start with the survey that includes visiting some underprivileged households to find out their take on the public schools in the neighborhood.


Though I have been in the college campus for more than 3 years now, have seen hundreds of things changing here in the past few years, from administration to seasons to workers to contractors to students but still there are regions even in this 200 acres campus which were never visited before. I have been to that far corner called workers quarters a few times when the zhopdi existed to have lime and once when my Abhigyaan student Vijay literally dragged me to his house, but yesterday was the first time when I actually went inside those one room zhuggi houses whose area in the square feets could be compared to any of the toilets in our hostels and where almost 12 families live happily(of course happiness is subjective). A family of five squeezes in a 8x8x6 cubic feet cube. There are no windows, the walls have become pitch black because of the soot of the smoke which has become a part of their everyday oxygen, the floor is not cemented. It's utter misery. And yet they don't crib. Yet all they can think of is somehow getting another days work which pays them a meagre sum of Rs.80 in the evening after an 8 am to 6 pm job of cutting the grass from the sprawling green gardens of BITS. And yet they have no problems. Infact they don't have any expectations from life, any dreams as such and most of all almost no hope. And yet they are happy(???).
While every morning you and I crib for not wanting to go to work or classes or for anything under the sun that's not controlled by us. Everyday I am unhappy for thousands of things that I don't have or I don't run and all these Gardeners can think of is whether the grass is sprinkled with water or not.....