December 2012
Tony Joseph
Position
Volunteering at Shanti Bhavan was the best experience of my life. I cannot say enough great things about the place. I am returning to the school again first chance I get.
Did you feel like you made a difference?:
I know I made a difference in the education of these children because I was right there with each of them, teaching classes, grading homework, and tutoring after school. I could my impact unfold as the students learned science over the time period I was there.
Organization and communication:
Everyone at the organization, at both their US and India base, went out of their way to accomdate and communicate with the volunteers. The strong leadership that has been present since the organizations founding trickles down to all aspects of it.
The other volunteers are nothing short of amazing and come from all over the world, although mostly the US. They range in age from college students to working professionals and retirees. Everyone lives in the "guest house" together and tends to get along real well. There about 11-12 volunteers at any given time. You will live, dine, hang out, and most likely take trips with them as well.
Safety:
For the first time in my life (I grew up in urban Chicago) I did not have to lock anything or carry anything with me. The school is located in a remote area and everyone there is committed to the education of the children.
At 6:15, my alarm goes off. By 6:30, I’m standing in front of 40 kids on a basketball court teaching them the fundamentals of the game. It sounds like your typical high school morning basketball practice, but this took place in rural India, a few hours drive outside of Bangalore, with children whose families came from well below the poverty line. These were big families living off less than two dollars a day.
Shanti Bhavan Residential School is the only school of its kind. It takes in children from the poorest of the poor at the age of 4 and literally offers them a one in a million opportunity, a shot at an education that puts them on track for higher education at the university level. This is something the children’s parents could never have dreamed of, since many of them never had the opportunity to even hold a pen and paper. Now I was teaching the children of those parent’s trigonometric identities and oxidation-reduction reactions.
The idea to go to Shanti Bhavan came to me from reading about it in a book, The World is Flat. Two months later, I was on a plane to one of the most beautiful campuses I had ever visited. However, its beauty was not in its bright walls and picturesque gardens. It was in the faces of the children, teachers, and volunteers I had the privilege of working with on a daily basis. My fellow volunteers, who I lived, dined, and traveled with, came fromall corners of the globe.
Before starting medical school, I cannot think of anything that I would have rather done. Witnessing poverty first hand and meeting the special people who were on the front lines combating it, gave me the inspiration I needed to tackle the challenges that lay ahead of me. Although I was volunteering as a teacher, I think I learned more from my students than they could have possibly learned from me. Each day was full of new adventures and challenges. I was constantly in awe at how quickly the children grasped new concepts and how motivated they were to achieve more than society ever expected of them. And above all, I developed the service mentality that is embodied by a quotation written in the school’s main hall: ―"Dream of a world only your heart can build, act with courage and love, and never ask why."
Shanti Bhavan Residential School is the only school of its kind. It takes in children from the poorest of the poor at the age of 4 and literally offers them a one in a million opportunity, a shot at an education that puts them on track for higher education at the university level. This is something the children’s parents could never have dreamed of, since many of them never had the opportunity to even hold a pen and paper. Now I was teaching the children of those parent’s trigonometric identities and oxidation-reduction reactions.
The idea to go to Shanti Bhavan came to me from reading about it in a book, The World is Flat. Two months later, I was on a plane to one of the most beautiful campuses I had ever visited. However, its beauty was not in its bright walls and picturesque gardens. It was in the faces of the children, teachers, and volunteers I had the privilege of working with on a daily basis. My fellow volunteers, who I lived, dined, and traveled with, came fromall corners of the globe.
Before starting medical school, I cannot think of anything that I would have rather done. Witnessing poverty first hand and meeting the special people who were on the front lines combating it, gave me the inspiration I needed to tackle the challenges that lay ahead of me. Although I was volunteering as a teacher, I think I learned more from my students than they could have possibly learned from me. Each day was full of new adventures and challenges. I was constantly in awe at how quickly the children grasped new concepts and how motivated they were to achieve more than society ever expected of them. And above all, I developed the service mentality that is embodied by a quotation written in the school’s main hall: ―"Dream of a world only your heart can build, act with courage and love, and never ask why."
