It has occurred to me that I haven’t given an adequate description of basically my purpose for being in India. I arrived under the impression that I would be working in an orphanage. Through fate or lack of organization, whatever the guilty party may be, I ended up working for a child labor school in Annur, a village a 40 minute bus ride from Hunsur. The ethnic tribes in Karnataka, the state in which I live, have been battling for more rights, but these improvements can be crippled by their poverty and illiteracy. The Nisarga Foundation is an NGO that helps facilitate certain rights, including the education of children. It pulls children that would otherwise be working in the tobacco fields and puts them in to schools. It is a noble effort but they are still leaps and bounds away from providing a quality education.
The teachers are severely under educated and not exactly motivated to actually conduct class on a regular basis. I am supposed to be teaching English along with the other volunteer, Nils, but most of my days are spent inside the school waiting for something to happen. As a result, I don’t have much to write home about. Nils and I have been meeting with the headmaster of the school, the director from the Nisarga Foundation, as well as other child right’s organizations to figure out some way to contribute, but nothing has materialized as of yet.
This has been a fairly frustrating experience, but through it all I have developed a rudimentary attachment to the children that promises to grow with more interaction with them. They hardly speak any English, but like all children, they are satisfied with a smile or holding hands.
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| a few of my kids at a child rights meeting |
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| sporting their new umbrellas on the way to Lake Day |
This post documenting your experience reflecting the reality of India reminds me of the movie, Born into Brothels by Ross Kauffman. Though I felt the movie was biased in certain aspects I find your writing to be otherwise. I think, if possible, it might be a good idea for you to write about your perceptions of the parents of these child labors. As you may be aware, sending a child to school on a regular basis requires a good deal of parental effort (not only due to the significant costs involved but also in terms of the time and attention required to ensure the child's sustained attendance and progress), and that the poor quality of the schooling system often discourages parents from making that effort IMHO. But, what ever it maybe you choose to write and share, I thank you for bringing the issues out in the open! It takes awareness before correction.
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