Site visits always teach me something new. In the last post I mentioned how attendance will not improve performance of a student unless the student wants to learn. Today's post is somewhat a continuation of the point.
I went to visit one of our projects in Noida. This project is supported by a Swiss funding organization and a member of the organization was visiting. I accompanied her to the project. One of the innovative things that this project has done is to select about 20 children and support their education through school. The great thing about this is that we can track the progress of the children. Three of them are now in Class (grade) 11. One of them has joined the Arts/humanities section, another has joined commerce, and the third has joined the science stream. All of them want to go to college/university. Needless to say they come from economically underprivileged section and in fact the student studying in the Arts/Humanities works with his father in the evening to augment the family income. And it is this student who floored me.
The Swiss representative introduced herself and after a round of introduction and looking at their report cards, she asked them whether they have any question for her. After a slight hesitation, this boy stood up and said in perfect English that he is interested in Graphic Arts/Design and he wants to a pursue a course in this area. Ultimately he wants to go to abroad but he does not how to go about to fulfill his ambition. Can she help him?
As we further talked with him, it turned out that he knows Corel Draw and Photoshop but of course, these are obsolete because the field prefers Illustrator, a software he does not have. His NGO had taught him photoshop but he had forgotten it because he did not have a computer/PC. Now he has PC and he has WiFi connection. So he has found You Tube Tutorials for Photoshop and he is learning it through that. The only problem is that he used to have Photoshop (it came with the computer) but it has got corrupted now.
The entire conversation took place in English, something that I did not expect. But what amazed more was the fire he had in him to do something with his life. He knew what he wanted, he had explored the options, and now he wants is some guidance so that he could achieve his dream.
I know IGNOU has graphic design course and I left that information with the coordinator. I do hope he gets what he wants.
I went to visit one of our projects in Noida. This project is supported by a Swiss funding organization and a member of the organization was visiting. I accompanied her to the project. One of the innovative things that this project has done is to select about 20 children and support their education through school. The great thing about this is that we can track the progress of the children. Three of them are now in Class (grade) 11. One of them has joined the Arts/humanities section, another has joined commerce, and the third has joined the science stream. All of them want to go to college/university. Needless to say they come from economically underprivileged section and in fact the student studying in the Arts/Humanities works with his father in the evening to augment the family income. And it is this student who floored me.
The Swiss representative introduced herself and after a round of introduction and looking at their report cards, she asked them whether they have any question for her. After a slight hesitation, this boy stood up and said in perfect English that he is interested in Graphic Arts/Design and he wants to a pursue a course in this area. Ultimately he wants to go to abroad but he does not how to go about to fulfill his ambition. Can she help him?
As we further talked with him, it turned out that he knows Corel Draw and Photoshop but of course, these are obsolete because the field prefers Illustrator, a software he does not have. His NGO had taught him photoshop but he had forgotten it because he did not have a computer/PC. Now he has PC and he has WiFi connection. So he has found You Tube Tutorials for Photoshop and he is learning it through that. The only problem is that he used to have Photoshop (it came with the computer) but it has got corrupted now.
The entire conversation took place in English, something that I did not expect. But what amazed more was the fire he had in him to do something with his life. He knew what he wanted, he had explored the options, and now he wants is some guidance so that he could achieve his dream.
I know IGNOU has graphic design course and I left that information with the coordinator. I do hope he gets what he wants.
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