A fellow MAD team which assisted special children in making creative products and sold them to the public
Our particular project was based on a school called Hazrath Natharvalli in the Chatiram region in Trichy. The school started off as a community education centre run within the complex of a Durgah. Established since 45 years, the school stands in the middle of a low income community that survives on daily wages, primarily through semi-skilled jobs such as bidi workers, auto drivers etc. Many students assist their parents in their jobs as a result of which there is high levels of absenteeism. Also because many of the parents haven’t gone through any formal education and hence the children have also developed an indifference to education.
During our first visit to the school, we were all slightly apprehensive. Where would the school be? Would we able to communicate with the children at all? Would we feel alienated there? But the minute we stepped into the premises of the school, most apprehensions were driven out. The excitement on the faces of the kids on seeing us was unprecedented. They addressed all of us as ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiya’, (in tamil) almost as if they knew us and all the more surprisingly could even speak basic English without any trouble. One of our members, being a Tamilian, was able to communicate with the faculty and board members, to understand the root cause of this low attendance, especially in the morning classes. We interviewed the teachers and the Headmaster and took surveys to come to this root cause. Also because as MBAs, that’s what we love doing, ‘Primary Research’.
The children of the school were highly receptive of our presence and greeted us during every visit.
We learnt that the students love to attend classes and learn, but were not given any push at all from their parents; so to address this we decided to come up with a zero period where we would show short movies and videos to engage the students and facilitate group activities. Our main goal was to ensure that the students were driven enough to come to school by themselves, even when the push from their families were missing. After a few trial runs, we were glad to see our efforts reap rewards when we noted almost a 100% attendance on the days when we administered the zero period. The school teachers and Principal were appreciative of our contribution and hoped that we kept visiting the school frequently to motivate the students.
We plan to visit the school again and hold a small session for the kids during children's day. Not to mention the chocolates we have promised them on our return trip to the school. At the end after a long day of the MAD presentations of the 14th of August, we could see the satisfaction in all the MAD teams to have gotten the chance to work with the lesser fortunate sections of the society and having made some positive change in them.
After all, “We are all Making A Difference here”, at IIM Trichy!
About the Author:
Aroop is in his 2nd year of MBA at IIM Trichy. He likes to read and write when in a pensive mood, and indulges in football and YouTube otherwise.
Comments