Inspiration
150 Jabalpur college students team up to help slum kids prepare for admission tests
Kaarwaa.N a group of college students founded by Gaurav Patil is coaching slum kids to prepare for the entrance exam of JNV schools. The group keeps its ranks fresh by recruiting students from first to third years who pass on the responsibility to fresh recruits.
Sahil Patel and Aryan Ahirwar, students of Class V from a slum in Jabalpur, have become an unlikely source of inspiration for scores of other children when they gained admission into a Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV). While getting an admission doesn’t seem too big a deal. However, what changes the picture is that they were coached to pass the entrance test by a group of college students named Kaarwaa.N.
“Social work was never my aim. I know that there are many great organizations working at a very large scale and creating laudable impact. My vision was to instill a sense of responsibility towards the society among my college-mates. Something like this, I think, motivates people to contribute later in life too – be it in small ways,” says Gaurav Patil, who founded Kaarwaa.N in 2013 when he was a student of Jabalpur Engineering College.
Gaurav started Kaarwaa.N with a group of 10 like-minded students who wanted to do something constructive for the society in their spare time. They began by visiting nearby slums and teaching children for 1-2 hours daily. But soon they realised that this approach didn’t offer much scope for creating a long term impact. Instead Gaurav decided to assist the children in a way that provided a strong foundation that they would be able to capitalise later in life. “I come from a tribal village and have some friends who gained admission in JNV and later turned out to be very successful students. So I decided that we should focus on helping children prepare for admission in JNVs from Class VI so that the school can assist them after that,” says Gaurav.
The Navodaya Vidyalaya System is a commendable government initiative where alternate schools are created for talented children in rural India. Operated by the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), JNVs are fully residential and co-educational schools affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). They have Classes VI through XII. 80% of the seats in these schools are reserved for students coming from rural India, and 20% for those living in urban parts of the country.
“Once they get admission in a JNV, students will be able to complete their education and support their families in the future. Additionally, they will also become a source of inspiration for students from nearby villages to study hard,” says Gaurav.
Once the goal became clear, so did the pathway towards it. Gaurav created a time-table and a teaching framework for all 10 college students in the group and began with 1 government primary school in the slum – preparing children of Class V for the JNV admission test.
Slowly, Kaarwaa.N spread its reach to an orphanage and other kids in the community as well. As is the case with under privileged children, the initial challenge faced was suspicions of parents and teachers. They overcame this with communication and slowly, as the residents saw them returning each day, they started supporting the group. And today, Kaarwaa.N has 150 selfless members operating in 4 schools in the area, with 40-60 children in each school.
To keep the volunteering effort and consequently the group alive, Kaarwaa.N enrols members of first to third years, and a proper succession is planned wherein the responsibility is transferred from one batch to the next. The Kaarwaa.N group is whole heartedly supported by their college professors and help them with procuring books that are needed to teach. The group also conducts co-curriculars like music, arts, sports, and environmental learning lessons. Having gauged the lower than idea knowledge level of students in Class V, the group has started preparing kids from class III and IV itself so that they are ready at the appropriate time.
Kaarwaa.N has slowly started getting involved in other social activities like distributing warm clothes among the slum-dwellers in winters, conduction sports and painting competitions for kids, other than health camps, etc.
Gaurav, now currently pursuing his Masters in Delhi, continues to coordinate with those who are currently running Kaarwaa.N. “We have seen a lot of improvement in the basic mathematical skills of the students, along with an increase in their confidence levels. The families and schools in the slum support us and encourage us to keep moving forward,” he says.