The Project

The residential care program that the NGO provides has a number of children who have never been to a formal school setting. As the primary caretakers of these children, the duty of imparting education to them has landed on the NGO. The lockdown made it very difficult for the teachers and students alike to adjust to the new mode of learning. When the NGO noticed that the teachers were losing interest in teaching, they posted this project to give them a break from the monotony and introduce them to new and engaging teaching methods.

The Journey

The initial communication with the volunteers gave them a sense that they had to educate the teachers on the various chapters but at a later stage when the project coordinator changed, they were told that they had to motivate the teachers to continue teaching despite the challenges they might face. This clarity was what helped them work in accordance with the expectations of the NGO and the teachers. 

The volunteers met online every Thursday to brainstorm ideas and strategize their best way forward. Their sessions were held every Saturday, and the volunteers divided among themselves and took an equal number of sessions. Their strategy to tackle the task was to come up with ideas that were out of the box. They discovered that an activity-based method was a good fit for the teachers. There was a point where lack of feedback from them demotivated the volunteers a little, but they gave assignments to the teachers on an individual-need basis to solve the issue. The use of engaging activities as opposed to the route they had initially taken, a “black and white” approach, was what got the teachers more involved in the program and made it fun for the volunteers.  

The wonderful coordination they had among themselves clubbed with the positive feedback received from the teachers for their innovative and proactive approach was what kept them motivated till the completion of the project. 

Challenges faced

This project was put to the test many times as there were a couple of challenges along the way. Their first challenge came right at the beginning of their journey. The volunteers were given a set of guidelines which they followed, but halfway through they realized they weren’t in sync with the teachers’ expectations and things weren’t panning out as they had hoped they would.  In addition, both of the volunteers had family emergencies to attend to during the project’s initial days. 

Chezuba intervened by following up with the volunteers and the project coordinator, which led to the change in the project coordinator to Mr. Deepak. This helped the volunteers, as he was able to provide them with some much-needed clarity and direction. The volunteers quickly formed an action plan based on the changes, and the project turned out to be a win-win situation for everyone involved. 

From The NGO’s side, since Deepak came onboard midway, and had a significant amount of catching up to do. Their initial coordination was scarce as There was a time difference to take into consideration with Kanyakumari being in Madrid. They took around a month to agree upon a convenient time. 

The teachers found it exhausting to attend this program after their teaching hours, and hence there was a tendency to not pay attention. Deepak did try appointing another POC to smoothen the process, but even that didn’t work. As a last resort, he addressed the teachers and explained to them that this was a great opportunity to come by and one they shouldn’t miss out on. They also were given an understanding that the volunteers were working for free, along with spending a good amount of their valuable time to prepare and address the teachers. 

Once the teachers were reassured that this was just a refresher program for them to incorporate new teaching methods to keep the children alert, they were way more enthusiastic and cooperated with the volunteers better.