Online Learnings

Happiness is sometimes a laptop.

Roopa's children Sravanthi and Dinesh hold it up with pride.

When trying to do online learning in a village. For months.

Poring over a shared cell phone. Getting headaches.

Not able to sustain.

And then unseen friends, @oviyasekar from @_musiri, @tsapna and others send this gift. And suddenly learning seems more possible

And Roopa now sends this picture of beaming smiles.

Roopa is part of Paalaguttapalle bags. She works hard to sustain her family. The children are bright, hardworking and study in the government hostels

Chandana, Pawan and these children will share the laptop

... and then another laptop ame for the other group, Keerthana, Priya, Chendu and others. Life and learning gets better.

Online learnings.

The kids like a video WhatsApp call now and then.

My friend Lakshmi Sv is working with one group of children daily teaching English. Over a smartphone that they all share.

The ages span 10-18 and the age range was a bit difficult.

Yesterday my friend Nidheesh Kumar connected. I have known him for a long time over FB. When he was in campus in Hyderabad he was helping poorer children and we discussed Milk and Ashwagandhadhi then.

He called to say that he and his friends wanted to help a group of children in sustained ways.

And rightaway we started in the evening. Daily classes with the junior group. They first told him that they wanted pictures of Kerala when they discovered that he was in Keraka !

This is a screenshot of the video call on the smartphone. The kids were introducing themselves one by one. This is Vijayalakshmi, alias Varshita alias Pinky. She is Keerthana's cousin, Atha's daughter, from another village. She and her sister Priya are staying here how as all schools are locked down.

...

Meet Vinay. Jayanthi.

Pandemic times. Online learnings.

But there are worlds where the children have no laptops, no smartphones, no way to access this new world they are pushed into ...

And learnings which were always challenging for first generation learners, in poor households, wher even nourishment wasn't simple, where the primary schools have only a single teacher from 1st to 5th ... suddenly studies became infinitely more difficult.

Many children sharing one smartphone and trying to study ... make for eye strain, headaches. Not learning.

And then our friend @Gurumurthy Mathrubhootam organized two laptops. And the joy in the voices of Jayanthi and Vinay. "Madam, now we can do our online classes ..."

Vinay is doing his diploma. Jayanthi is doing her lab technician B.Sc. Both these Paalaguttapalle children have worked against unimaginable odds. Their story is the stuff of dreams. The link is in the comments.