After preparing for a couple days before all the students arrived, the South Asian students presented on their cultures for the international students. You can read more here, and see a few student interviews here, beginning with Olga!
Monica
Mohammad
Rohini
Kultwisiso
Shilpi
Today I had an interesting and amazing experience in Akanksha. The students were really intelligent and brilliant. I enjoyed talking to the students about youth citizenship and one thing they would like to change in this world or their community. I was surprised with their answers because they wanted to change people’s mindset of their perspectives. Most of them talked about gender inequality and discrimination. After talking about youth citizenship and their community, we talked about what they liked to do in their community. I asked one of the students what she likes to do and she told that she likes to go to school. I asked her why and she told me that she likes school because she is able to learn about many things and hang out with her friends. I was surprised of her answer because I thought she would said something else besides school. Another thing that I enjoyed is hearing the teachers talk about their inspiration for education. Their stories were inspiring because they weren’t sure what they wanted to do for their career job. As they had the opportunity to experience and work in Akanksha, they realized that it was their passion to become a teacher or principal. They wanted to support and educated the students as best they could. Many children don’t have the opportunity to go to school and it is very important to them. Learning about the school has taught me that we all have common ideas like changing the gender inequality. We all either experience or saw it happen in our community. We are all different people but we share the same ideas and experiences.
The picture above is the questions relating to youth citizenship.
The first thing I told myself when I got to India was that I wanted to go visit a school or a community center to get a better grasp of Indian communities. I feel like people always see India’s schools over T.V or media, but for the first time I got to see it for myself. Today I got to go visit Magic Bus school. Magic Bus focuses on furthering education for underprivileged kids and delaying childhood marriage, since that is a major issue in that community. The experience in itself was very rewarding, but also overwhelming. It was an amazing opportunity to get to sit in the same classroom as the kindergarteners and play a board game of cricket with them and have them wave goodbye and hello vigorously at us as we came and went. Getting to see the school and the village from which the students came from was also truly rewarding. Towards the end it became very hectic as we struggled to get on our bus and leave the school as all the school children were crowding around our bus in hopes to see us. The experience in itself very much allowed me to get to see India on many different levels. Since the school was located in a city, I got to see a city in India for myself and the education system in person which is better then any media outlets pictures.
Today we went to visit the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai and it was such a great experience. The Hanging Garden’s provided such a beautiful view of the Arabian Sea and carried wind to refresh us all from the humid weather. Surrounding the High Garden were an abundance of trees and flowers. We also got to see a boot that is used as a ‘house.’ In reality, it’s a place for kids to play and on top of the boot was Jyoti Amge; she played Ma Petite on the hit tv show “American Horror Story.” It was such a surreal moment to see her in real life since I’ve only seen her on screen. Overall, today was a great day spent with many laughs and good company. I look forward to keep making memorable memories in India.
