Memories from the Kothrud Community
Shreya Chandrashekhar is one of our former volunteers from the Kothrud Community. She works as an engineer now, and has many cherished memories from her time with us. Read on to get a glimpse of the moments that make volunteer work such a rewarding experience!
I was a volunteer with the Kothrud branch, since shortly after its inception. I took away some really nice memories from my time here, and this seemed like a great opportunity to share some of those with all our readers.
One of the youngest kids was a 3 or 4 year old, full of energy, and would always disrupt classes. We would have to think of creative ways to keep him (and his group, by default) engaged! Sometimes we did this with simple, colourful music based videos in English, which quickly became a foolproof way of teaching the younger groups. It would always make me smile to see the group of tiny kids huddled around a mobile phone!
The older kids were more composed, and teaching them was undoubtedly very rewarding. Over a two-year period, they went from not being able to pronounce letters of the alphabet properly to getting comfortable even with slightly advanced grammar and parts of speech. Towards the end of my time with them, a couple of them were even able to hold small conversations with me in English! One of the kids from my group — Tushar — would tell me that if I went straight through the traffic signal and “turned right”, his school building was “on the right”. It was fantastic seeing him being able to pick up on subtleties like that.
A memory that always makes me smile is that of Tushar and Chandan (another one of my students) dying to have a go at Where’s Wally once the learning for the day was done. They would have a blast reading the cues at the top of each page to find not just Wally, but “the dog that had run away from its owner”, or “the lady with the bright pink hat”, without my help. I think that might just have been the best part of their session!
There were never more than 4 volunteers for the community for 12 kids on average, and at times it would be a little tricky to hold their attention, but I learned that there were so many different ways to approach teaching. Different kids responded to different methods — audio/video worked wonders for the younger kids. Flash cards and “fill in the blanks” exercises resonated with some of the older kids. Group story-telling sessions seemed to be appreciated by everyone alike!
It’s cliche but I’ll say it anyway; I took away more from the kids than they probably did from me. Their energy and enthusiasm were something else, and I rarely saw them in low spirits. I loved the time I spent with them and hope they did too
-By Shreya Chandrashekhar
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