The first time I visited Save the Children, India was almost a year ago. Humbling the experience it may have been, but the learning that experience taught will stay a lifetime.
On 26 June, about 20 of us from PwC India (Mumbai office) once again spent four hours with the kids from Save the Children. Located in the posh Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) area, there's something which is really uplifting. NGOs today receive much deserved funding to do quality work and service and you can see that in the eyes of these kids.
We were broken into groups which had equal number of kids divided between us. We spent two hours drawing and colouring and another hour playing antakshari and another hour judging some of the brilliant canvases I have seen in a long long time.
So what Save the Children does is they have huge boards on the walls of each floor and every six months groups of students are given topics which have to be visualised on the board. In short, make that plain board come to life. With the help of their teachers and I'm assuming counsellors too, I could see a tremendous amount of love, effort, research and dedication displayed on each canvas.
The marvel of it all - the excitement of the kids, teachers, support staff, principal - everyone celebrating a job well done,
Special mention must be made of their friends aka teachers. These wonderful people create such a warm environment for them to study, compete and grow in, that sometimes I feel they're excelling way more than what I did back in my day.
My take home: I was lost for four hours. Happily lost. Felt a huge lump when I had to leave. You keep wanting to be around people and places that leave you mesmerised, no? I just feel sometimes I'm such a coward that I didn't pursue what could have also been a very fulfilling life with these children. I mean they bonded with me. Open arms, kisses, gentlemen kind of hand shakes, and those big smiles and the biggest deal breaker of them all - their own beautiful world filled with the sounds of silence. I felt so left out. I really wanted to be part of that world.
Ever since my interactions with the banana cartwalla at Bandra Station, I've been meaning to make some efforts to learn sign language. I tried Googling a little bit at the NGO, but I know it would be a brilliant skill to learn. So adding that to the bucket list (:
