Color My World

     You know those students who can sit through long lectures or read incredibly dense books and remember every single detail of it? Yeah, I wish I was one of those people.  I’m a visual learner—I need to see pictures, graphs, and have hands-on activities to capture my attention or else 1) I lose interest 2) I get distracted 3) I forget everything I just heard.

     I’ve seen different primary schools in Hyderabad’s slum communities, and to say they are lacking is an understatement. Envision one room, mostly barren walls, and lots of cute Indian kids. One of our partner NGOs, SAPID, expressed the need for educational murals to assist in the classroom learning process. Given my love of bright colors and artsy things, I decided to head up this project.  In the past few weeks, we’ve complete two schools and will be completing one more before the summer ends, and I’m so happy with how they’ve turned out.

     The district education leader saw the first school we painted and liked it so much that he wants all the schools in the slums to have similar murals, no matter how long it takes. He also said the children were so excited about it that they showed up at the closed school on Saturday to learn.

     It’s been fun designing and painting the murals, but even more rewarding to know that hundreds of kids will be affected by this project. It has been reaffirmed to me of the importance of educating children, especially if they want to have opportunities to have a better livelihood in the future. 

Health Education

     When I decided to come to India with HELP, I knew there would be many opportunities to gain some real-life experience in my major, public health. Upon getting here, I learned that one of the biggest problems for people living in the slums is tobacco and alcohol abuse. Men in these communities earn about 200-300 rupees a day, which is about $4-6, while women earn about half of that. By spending a substantial amount of their already meager income to feed their addictions, individuals and communities are greatly affected.

     We’ve been conducting classes to educate the men and women about the effects of their alcohol and tobacco use. In addition to causing numerous health problems, it often leads to more abuse within families, and it can financially limit them from things like sending their children to school or buying enough food and water.

     Although we hope that every person who comes to our classes will immediately stop using these substances, we know that this is probably unlikely. However, we do set realistic goals with the individuals on changes they can make. I’ve seen how excited many of them are, especially the women, to share what they’ve learned with others, so we’re glad that we’ve planted the seeds for successful behavior change.

     Here are some photos from three classes we’ve had in the past couple weeks:

Our translator, Urmi, has been invaluable in reaching across the language barrier we face while teaching. 

  

 

Bridge Camps

     One of my favorite things about being here in India is seeing so many happy children all the time. They love to wave to us on the streets, smile at us on the buses, and laugh with us when we play together. And truth be told, I absolutely melt when I see kids walking in their perfectly matching school uniforms and larger-than-their-body backpacks.  Although I want to believe that all the kids I meet live carefree lives, I know that’s not the case for many of them.

     We have a great partner that our team is working with called the MV Foundation. They are dedicated to taking children out of illegal child labor jobs and getting them into school. Because the children have to test into government schools, MV set up “bridge camps” where kids who are behind in grade levels can catch up to the levels where they should be.

     For one of our Friday service projects, we visited one of these bridge camps and taught the boys different sports games. They absolutely loved it! These children have all different stories for why they are in the camps, including their parents were killed or commit suicide, or just can’t support them anymore. It was eye opening to be among kids who have experienced so much at such young ages, but I’m glad we could spend even a small amount of time with them to be their friends.

They were SO excited to play cricket. I'm still confused on the rules, but I like it! 

I know I shouldn't pick favorites, but these two boys were so cute.

MV provided lunch for us: rice with ladyfingers (a common vegetable) and a broth.  I learned that many people here eat just with their right hand, and the boys were laughing at how silly we all looked.