ADA HILL spent eleven months in India teaching English with Project Trust
In December 2018, Ada wrote:
“I am currently in my 4th month of an eleven month placement in rural India as an English teacher. Yes, it is hot, the food is spicy, and the insects are enormous. Despite all the amazing experiences I have already had, it would be inaccurate to say everything has been great in my time in India so far. My experience here has been one of stark contrasts; often witnessing something sickeningly sad and something overwhelming heart-warming in the same morning. However, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.
Project Trust, a U.K. charity that sends young people to volunteer around the world, selected me in October 2017 to go to India as a teacher. Subsequently, I was placed here in Sevalaya, where I will be living and working until July next year. Sevalaya is an Indian NGO that works to create opportunities and care for poor people in rural India. They run various projects free of charge, including an Old Age Home, children’s hostels, Community Colleges, a Goushala (a cow shelter), and a Primary and Secondary school.
In the first few weeks at Sevalaya, Catherine, the other volunteer I was paired with, and I spent our time helping with the ICT and Spoken English classes at the Community College. The NGO runs several of these colleges around Tamil Nadu, offering free courses in practical skills, with the aim of lifting students out of poverty and into the job market. Since then, although our teaching is now focused in the primary school, we have visited other community colleges. Interviewing the young people we meet there is the best part of our ‘social media work’. Social media is a job that we have somehow fallen into. On arrival Sevalaya asked us if we would help with their website and social media. The non-profit organisation relies entirely on donations, and an online presence is the best way to attract new donors. However, given that knowledge of written English, let alone hashtags, is far from abundant here, we are happy to help.
I now teach English to 1st and 2nd standard (five to eight year olds) six days a week. The primary and secondary school numbers around 2,000 children from the surrounding villages, where child labour was rife before Sevalaya was founded. Although often raucous, the children continually amaze me with their hard work. 1st standard’s gutsy rendition of ‘Row, row, row your boat’ brings a tear of pride to my eye every time. Three members of second standard class (who are deemed ‘slow learners’) won prizes in a competition talking about their favourite foods. It is the best feeling in the world to bump into one of the pupils in the village and to be able to have a, if very basic, conversation with them in English whilst their parent looks on in amazement. I also run extra tuition for some nine year old girls who are behind in their studies. Although their obsession with stickers persists, they can now say ‘Can I have a sticker, please?’ rather than ‘sticker, sister, sticker!’. These little victories are more than enough motivation to put my all into every lesson, regardless of how many class bundles break out.