Volunteer of the Month

I am a male Indian national born on 25th August 1987 residing in New Delhi, Graduated in mechanical engineering with over 8 years of experience in the field. I graduated from UCER in Gr. Noida and have since worked with several organizations, including CEDE Engineers-Delhi, Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA)-Bengaluru, Jrama Constructions, and Integrated Associates-Engineers and Contractors, Noida.

What made you take up this volunteering journey and the transformation the journey has brought about in you As a member of a middle-class family who migrated from Uttar Pradesh, Despite holding a conventional 9 to 5 job, I have always felt unfulfilled and yearned for alternative avenues to pursue my passion for teaching and learning. Fortunately, an opportunity to volunteer with Rzamba, a Kargil-based NGO founded by Ms. Saldon Stanzin Aka Sifa and four other co-founders, presented itself. As time passed, I found myself increasingly drawn to the idea of pursuing a career in teaching. Playing with the children and learning from their boundless creativity brought me immense joy, and I was even given the opportunity to handle all seven classes by myself for two days. Although this experience was challenging, it provided me with a newfound appreciation for the hard work that teachers undertake every day.

The contribution you made during your recent volunteering stint at Champawat I contacted Mr. Madan Bohra, who had posted on Facebook about his initiative in education. I asked my friend Nirjhar Biswas, whom I met in Kargil, to join me in Uttarakhand. We arrived on August 15th, enjoying the cold lush green view of Champawat, and met another volunteer from Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Bhanu Satyadev. Madan ji took the initiative to educate the children from his entire village, with a solution that if some of his students become teachers themselves, they will keep the wheel rotating for a long run. So, we started teaching higher class students in both primary school in the morning during school hours and secondary school at the library from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm in the evening after school hours, with a view to produce one or two leaders/teachers who can run the program.

The children in both primary and secondary were charming, fun-loving, and very receptive to learning. We ate, played, and learned together as a team, enjoying parties and other organized events. Our bond grew stronger day by day, and we became friends in no time. After Teachers’ Day, fifth-grade students took on the challenge of becoming teacher support at school and executed it very well. From that day onward, they themselves started liking it and began teaching lower grades for one hour daily.