by Nick Hsu
What is India to you? An extreme disparity between rich and poor? The most crowded trains ever? One of the most attractive cultures in the world with magnificent temples? Delicious spicy curry? These are all common stereotypes about India, but if you would like to get to know the reality of the country and to discover what an incredible place it is, you might want to consider seeing it the way I did, by becoming a volunteer. I visited Calcutta (or Kolkata) when I joined a non-government organization called the CRAWL Society (Children Resolution and Women Learning) during my summer vacation. The main aim of this group is to make a better world for the poor women and children in India. According to statistics, poverty and low education standards afflict almost 80% of the Indian population. Take one of my students, Chenny, as an example. Her mother told me that Chenny’s father had been sent to another city to work for almost three years. But Chenny’s mother has six children to bring up and earns just twenty US dollars per month. She does not have enough money to send Chenny to school. The most urgent task is to bring these kids to the same educational level as other people. Among many projects that CRAWL provides is the Shikshan project, which is an education center and the one I chose to work in. There your job is to teach children from slum areas. I was a math teacher for a high-level class, and I found the most important thing was to teach them basic tools to help them to operate a business on their own. This was very difficult to articulate, especially for those kids who could not communicate in English very well. But to my surprise, instead of being shy they were very keen to answer all the questions I asked during class. Other volunteers agreed with me that these were wonderful kids to teach. From the experience of being a teacher I can now see where Indian people obtained their attitude toward life. Because of its large population, people have to compete for survival since childhood. So maybe that’s why they were so anxious about showing their ability to a new teacher like me. Indian children have to be on their own much earlier than we can imagine. Another thing that drew my attention was their facial expressions. ”Why do they look so happy all the time?” I wondered. “I like the way I live! I have a lovely family, my house is not big but it’s pretty,” my landlord said. These people don’t need to buy luxuries to fulfill their vanity; their satisfaction toward life makes them optimistic. Believe it or not, the suicide rate in India is much lower than in Taiwan. We have a much higher living standard, and we believe that material things can make our lives better, but are we happy? Living in India is not an easy task. You need to get used to a very different culture. Nonetheless after I returned home and looked back on my experience, I felt more satisfied than ever before. It was not the end of a journey but the beginning of making a difference in my own lifetime. How to be a volunteer? CRAWL Society: http://www.crawlsociety.org/ SMILE: http://www.smilengo.org/ Global Volunteer Network :http://www.volunteer.org.nz/india/ Mother House: http://www.motherhouse.org/index.php a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|