Hemant's house. 

Amar's home. 

Tea made by Vishal. :) 

Vishal's house. 

May Updates

The classes on each weekend were carried out as planned,although the blog may not reflect it. The absence of activity of blog can be co-related by complex mathematical functions to my inability to execute my plans of updating the blog each week, which in turn is because of my inherent laziness when it comes to updating blogs.

It doesnt matter if you didnt understand the above statement. It was written to give a jazzy beginning to the post. Coming down to the activities carried out in 3 weeks since the blog was last updated,the usual activity of English Spoken classes continued smoothly. With the introduction of the book "Navneet Speakwell English" the course got a much needed structure. So now the knowledge transfer (yes I work where you think I work) becomes that much easier each week among the volunteers. The new volunteers if any just continue withe next chapters of the book.

Some people will be leaving Ehsaas soon, and some will be joining in as the B-school semester kicks off..... So looking forward to the transition in Ehsaas over the coming weeks

Ehsaas @ CYDA with kids from Patil Estate - 5 - 6th May

• 
  
  
  
  Just a quick update on what happened @ Ehsaas classes over the weekend. Nikhil, Bipin, Mrs Zong and Ravi took the Saturday class, while Richa, Nikhil and Ravi took the sunday class. Ravi is Ehsaas' newest member.
  
  We have not been able to lay our hands on Grond's suggested books. Nikhil and I tried at local bookstores here, but when I asked for publishers with names like Rapidex/Navneet, they gave me very downmarket looks. The Parochial bas%$#ds.
  
  For Saturday's class, we checked homework that the kids brought to the class (Dhananjay actually brought 44 words instead of 25. That is indicative of the level of enthusiasm) The other kids did the brought nearly 5 pages of sentences that they had conjugated in the first, second and third person in the Present, past, and Future tense (including simple, continous, and perfect tenses for each of the former tenses)
  
  We did a very interesting functional english exercise with the kids, where we walked the children through the right way to speak on the phone (it was etiquette + conversational english rolled into one), and had them recreate the daily scenarios (speaking to a store owner, speaking to a mechanic) in English amongst themselves
  
  On Sunday, only 2 kids showed up (the other 3 kids called me up later. They needed to go to the hospital to support the family of a friend who had died the same day)
  
  I missed the first half of the class, but I think the kids were walked through simple exercises of the Std 5 Balbharati. Throughly enjoyable weekend for the kids and Ehsaas.

Ehsaas @ CYDA with kids from Patil Estate - 30th April

For those of you wondering about the new volunteer in the first picture, His name is Shawn lawyer, and I invited him to join us teach the kids English. He is spearheading the CYDA "Traffic Watch" initiative in Pune. ( I might be doing some street plays with the CYDA Traffic Watch people soon ;)).

We first checked the homework assigned to them yesterday, and then continued with the books that we used on saturday, having the kids read in English (and improve their diction and pronunciation along the way) and then translate the paragraph into marathi/Hindi or explain it to them in Hindi or Marathi. It was a fun class.

Parth took on the responsibility of teaching the fundamentals of english grammar to Hemant, Vishal and Sunil (in picture 3). If I was one of those kids, I would have been amazed at the patience and trouble with which Parth taught that module.

The kids were given varying levels of homework (from bringing 25 new English words to the next class, to completing english sentences in the Present, Past, and Future tense).

Compared to Saturday when 7 Ehsaas volunteers showed up, only 2 showed up Sunday.

I see the need for better coordination while running this program vis a vis"
1. Volunteer participation
2. Course structure for the kids (it's a little to ad hoc at present)

My thoughts: Split ourselves into a Saturday and Sunday group, and let the "spoken english" program run for an 8 week duration.Your

Feedback/ comments will be appreciated 

Each one , teach one - English classes @ CYDA fro the kids from Patil estate slum on the 29th of April

Bipin, Nikhil, Nishant, Richa, Harshal, and Manish from Ehsaas teaching Vishal, Sunil, Hemant,
Dhananjay, and Sumeet at our weekend Spoken English classes.

Ehsaas @ CYDA , teaching the kids from the Patil Estate slum English

 

"Ehsaas" The vision and the mission

Ehsaas is basically a iniatitive by the youth of Pune to give something back to the society. The average age of the group members can be put to be around 23-24. So why are these people in such a age group, notorious for creating "trouble" in the society behind such a cause. Lets analysis the emotions and the belief behind setting up "Ehsaas" one by one:

What is "Ehsaas"?
Ehsaas is a group which has a mix of students as well as working professionals. We have MBA aspirants, MBA students, software professionals and people working in various other industries among us. The philosophy behind "Ehsaas" is to get together on weekends and put our spare time to some use.

So How was "Ehsaas" born?
Ehsaas was born primarily in THE most popular youth forum in the country Pagalguy.com There is a special section on the website dedicated to community service iniatitives in various cities across India, named as "Touching Lives" Anyone who is interested in community service can check out the the respective thread in their cities in this section. Thus most of us involved in "Ehsaas" are the members of Pagalguy.com We interacted online first on this forum and then had our first meet on 26th February 2006. The thread where the members of "Ehsaas" discuss the various issues involved in the functioning of "Ehsaas" is Ehsaas - Community Services in Pune

Philosophy behind "Ehsaas":
Its a genuine and sincere attempt by a few like-minded individuals coming together. We dont expect any returns from this. All we are doing is just answering the call of our conscious. So the thought is simple. Utilise the time that we can spare at the present for something that we care for. Its getting further from the attitude of "Kuch Karna Chahiye"
So "Ehsaas" was born with a simple vision of actually getting to work, rather than just talking about it

So Is this inspired from "Rang De Basanti"?
NO. This is not inspired from any fictional story. In fact the idea of "Ehsaas" was born much before "Rang De Basanti" We are not a socio-political organisation, but just a group who are interested in doing work at the grass-root level.

So What have we done till now?
The first meet of "Ehsaas" was held on 26th February 2006. Since then we have met on every weekend. It took us some time to zero in on the issues that we want to address. Right now we are working on a couple of projects:
1) English & Computer classes with kids from Patil Estate slum in Pune. we have kids ranging from age 12-18 who we regularly interact with over the weekends.
2)We are also working with the deaf and dumb school in Vagholi, in the outskirts of Pune which also doubles as a residential school for the not so fortunate kids whose parents cannot afford to ensure their basic needs, let alone educate them. We would be involving us in mentoring the kids and provided some conselling to the the kids about to pass out from school .Also we have plans to start computer lessons there.
3) We are also involved in a small way in the rehabilitation process of the homeless in Pune

Future Plans of Ehsaas:
We also plan to work in a auxillary with some more organisations in Pune. Also as our strength grows we will pick up some new project.

How Can You Help:
You can volunteer with us. We generally carrry out all our work on weekends. So you can join us. If you feel like you can also volunteer on the weekdays, then we would be delighted to have you with us

If you want to help financially in the cause you can get in touch with us. We would be involved only in co-ordinating you with the respective organisations and NGO's. We would not be handling any money matters, but just a bridge between you and the people who need your help

If you want to know more mail us at ehsaaspune[AT]gmail.com

"Ehsaas" Pune Cares... Truly

The first Ehsaas Weekly English speaking session - 22nd April 2006

Well...

To start off, I arrived late. But I arrived. And the session had kick-started. The students, about six of them, had been given an exercise to write something in English... anything.

When these boys spoke, they began with the usual essay that a student speaks... 'My name is A. I have two sisters, and one brother. My father's name is B... ' and so forth. Before it wound up as an ordinary English class, I realised that these boys were not here for the usual 'Help us learn English' session that occurs at many places, but for mentorship. There was no power in their voices. There was something that was urgently required, I felt it, perhaps the others as well... but I could not figure it out at that time.

When someone usually asks me my name, I say with pride, 'My name's Harshal'. This pride was missing in these boys' words. The emphasis on the name, the power that rides behind it: That was missing. Perhaps it was time for a pep talk. I began. Talking about the strength that comes from within. The confidence of oneself. The pride that one holds with one's name. The self confidence that needs to come out. It's easy to type these words in retrospect, but you don't exactly understand that this is what you are speaking about, especially when the words are coming out from the heart, rather than the mind, as they are now. The boys understood.

We then helped them with the words they needed to emphasise upon in their essays, and speak them out loud.

I realised that more than a teacher or a trainer, these people need a mentor, someone who knows more than them, and is ready to teach them on their terms… takes them as an empty slate, does not judge them. Me thinks that while the English classes should continue, parallel to that, such an effort should be made to ensure that the kids take us as friends, rather than those who just come, teach in novel methods, and disappear for the rest of the week.



During this time, Nikhil & Subhashini tried to arrange a few English Cartoon VCDs for the boys. They were able to find only Hindi cartoons, but we turned it into another exercise. The cartoon would be in Hindi, so that the boys understood, and then they would summarise it for us in English. So it happened. The kids tried hard, and did succeed in translating their thoughts into English. We take our English for granted, but for them, even speaking in Hindi being an exercise, every word that they speak in English is an achievement. That satisfaction was seen on their faces.



Last, but not the least, we played a Word - Antakshari sort of a game. One person starts off with a word, spells it, and gives its meaning. The second in line says a word starting with the ending letter of the previous word, its spelling & meaning. And so on. All of us volunteers and students participated. I felt that this game was the best ice breaker in the day... everyone was relaxed, enjoying, pulling each other's legs, so on and so forth. The words selected were put up on the board for all to see... most of the guys even noted them down so that they could use them later.

That was the best way to end the day, and my Pune visit... I'd waited all day just for these 3 hours, and man, were the worth it!!!