“Nayi Disha gave me a brand new route,” Bappan Das tells me. It’s a Saturday morning, time to name him, I feel. However Bappan has a busy day forward. “I’m about to begin my Class 11 exams,” he tells me. “Subsequent yr I will probably be in Class 12.”

He sounds excited on the feat, and he ought to be.

The journey that Bappan goes on to relate confirms my perception that training was as soon as a distant dream for this younger boy. “After I was 9 months outdated, my dad and mom and I got here to Gurugram from West Bengal. I by no means went to high school till I used to be eight years outdated,” he says.

His narratives illustrate the division of his life into two phases — early childhood reminiscences characterised by battle, and a happier interval after he turned eight.

After shifting to Gurugram, Bappan began attending courses on the Nayi Disha NGO — began in 2014 by Seema Seth — proper close to the slum cluster the place he lived together with his dad and mom in Harijan Basti in DLF Section V, Gurugram. “We learnt so many topics,” he tells me excitedly. “Seema ma’am would take us in every single place! We’d play, research, and have enjoyable.”

Although at present a scholar on the VIDYA NIOS in Gurugram, Bappan shares that the muse of his instructional pursuits was laid at Nayi Disha. From a younger boy disinterested in training to now an adolescent who harbours goals of turning into an engineer sometime, Bappan’s story makes Seema smile, and watching him scale makes her really feel very proud.

This is only one instance of how diligence can change a life. “, I by no means imagined doing this,” Seema is modest.

However I need to admit as she chronicles her journey from an HR skilled with 30 years below her belt, to now on the helm of making a change within the lives of underprivileged children, I’m intrigued at what level one path segued into the opposite.

“It began the day I had a dialog with a rickshaw driver,” she responds.

‘Ma’am aap college khol do’

In 2013, Seema, who’s now in her late sixties, had had sufficient of the company world. She give up.

However come night, on daily basis, she would hail an auto to the Authorities college in Sikanderpur the place she would spend the subsequent few hours educating English to the main part. “It was one thing that I used to be deeply keen about. Whereas I used to be working, many a time I’d take day off my coaching assignments to show right here,” she shares.

It was most of the time the identical rickshaw driver who would ferry her backward and forward from the varsity. And sooner or later he broke the ice.

“Do you cost to show the scholars right here?” Mahendra requested her.

“No, I do it without spending a dime,” she replied.

“I stay in Harijan Colony the place there are many youngsters who loaf around,” he defined. “Their dad and mom are maids, drivers, and grocers. They go away for work within the morning and return late within the night. Ma’am aap waha college khol do (Ma’am open a faculty there).”

Seema was intrigued.

“Nicely, in case you handle to search out me an area to show, I’ll,” she stated. And inside a few weeks, Mahendra did precisely that.

Thus began Nayi Disha on 19 March, 2014, in an outdated warehouse in the midst of the Harijan Colony with 35 youngsters. Since its inception, the NGO and Seema have tried to create a linkage for these underprivileged children into mainstream education by offering them with the educational basis they want.

Reworking children’ lives in real-time

The impact of time is obvious within the goals of Nayi Disha. What began as a handful of youngsters being taught English in a small room within the basti has now scaled to over 100 children unfold throughout eight rooms studying quite a lot of topics — English, Hindi, arithmetic, environmental science, artwork, computer systems and theatre.

Extra astounding than the youngsters’s participation has been the assist of the dad and mom, notes Seema. “They’ve begun to see an enchancment of their youngsters,” she says, including that this realisation deepened in the course of the lockdown that ensued amid the COVID pandemic.

“Due to on-line courses, it so occurred that folks had been at house whereas the children had been studying. We’d ship them actions and worksheets to unravel. The dad and mom ended up studying rather a lot within the cut price,” she chuckles.

On the finish of the lockdown, the whole basti knew the times of the week, months of the yr, and multiplication tables on the information of their fingers.

“The dad and mom acquired to see how a lot worth we’re including to the youngsters’s lives. They realised that their youngsters really research at Nayi Disha and that there are people who find themselves spending devoted time with them,” she shares.

This modification in mindset is refreshing. The dad and mom’ new view of the NGO as an area of studying, in distinction to seeing it as a creche, is a win in accordance with Seema.

College is freedom for these youngsters. Proper from the 9 am meeting and the circle time — the place they share their observations in regards to the climate, discuss their day and categorical themselves — to the chatter on the mid-day meal distribution and English courses which are carried out by volunteer college students from schools throughout Gurugram, every second is a celebration of studying.

However, the children love theatre classes essentially the most.

“It makes them assured and outgoing. It encourages them to talk up,” she explains. “That is nice as a result of we seen that numerous them are shy and reluctant to talk.”

However at 1.30 pm when the children file to return house, brighter than the smile on any of their faces, is the one on their trainer’s face.

Nisha, who has been with Nayi Disha because it began, is Seema’s rock. “Seema ma’am was on the lookout for a trainer and somebody put me in contact together with her. Because the begin, I’ve been educating these youngsters many topics and have watched these youngsters develop. I keep in mind them being unruly, however with time, we taught them etiquette and manners together with different topics. They’ve picked these items up properly,” says Nisha.

Holding abreast with the occasions

For 10 years now, the eight rooms have been bustling with college students’ chatter, laughter, and cheer. Nonetheless, the success of the mannequin is overshadowed by the problem of retention of the children.

Elaborating, Seema says, “The individuals who stay in these slum clusters have their roots in distant villages of India. So, on the drop of a hat they go away for the village — typically as a result of somebody is getting married, different occasions as a result of they’re constructing a house there, or they should are likely to their fields.”

She provides, “The kids miss months of college after which come again clean.”

This creates a dilemma for Seema and the crew of 12 lecturers about whether or not to take the youngsters again or not. “If we don’t take them again, we will probably be encouraging them to be loitering round. If we take them again, we must put in an additional quantity of effort into educating them the identical ideas once more,” she shares.

However Seema all the time chooses the latter.

With the recognition that Nayi Disha gained by means of the years, she began one other outlet at Indira Colony with 5 rooms. Presently, 65 college students research there.

As soon as college students attain Class 5, they have to take an entrance take a look at that can give them entry into one of many public colleges below NIOS. Those that clear the doorway are admitted into colleges — akin to Delhi Public College, Shiksha Kendra, SRF Vidyalaya and Lotus Petal Basis.

“The scholars are being educated within the NCERT curriculum even whereas they’re at Nayi Disha,” she emphasises.

She provides that trainer trainings are carried out as soon as a month to test if the syllabus is being adopted, and to grasp any challenges the lecturers are going through. “There’s additionally a parent-teacher assembly on the final Saturday of each month.”

Coming by funding to maintain Nayi Disha going is a problem. However, not for Seema. “I’ve grow to be a believer that there’s anyone within the universe who’s all the time listening to my ideas. Each time I consider one thing which is for the youngsters, it all the time finally ends up understanding,” she shares.

Circling again to the story of Mahendra — the auto driver due to whose request the plan was set into movement — Seema says it was future. “Mahendra had misplaced his dad and mom within the 1999 floods of Odisha and had come to Delhi as an orphan. He’d all the time wished to check however by no means had the possibility. Coaxing me to begin a faculty for teenagers in slum clusters was his method of constructing certain he might play a task in another person’s dream coming true.”

And at present, Nayi Disha is the lacking piece of the puzzle.

Edited by Pranita Bhat