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Meet Shuvajit Payne, an IIM graduate who got a chance to live the Indian dream of working abroad. 5 years ago, he decided to walk away from it all when he realized this was not what he wanted.
“I dream of rural India where every village will become a self-sufficient entity, every village will have inspiring teachers and are developed in terms of social happiness.”
It was tough initially to leave it all behind, especially with strong disapproval from friends and family, but Shuvajit still went ahead. He joined SBI’s 13 months long ‘Youth For India’ fellowship, which gives opportunities for youngsters to work on rural development projects and partner with NGOs to help build solutions.
Since last year, 54 fellows have worked on a number of projects in 35 villages in 10 states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharastra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
After the induction, Shuvajit was posted to the village of Waifad in the Wardha district of Maharashtra. With a few belongings, uncomfortable dwellings and infrastructure that disconnected him from the world, he managed to get used to his new lifestyle. The same went to the students he taught and rural people he interacted with. It was hard to break the ice at first, but they got used to him.
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Bad harvests have caused many farmers to commit suicide and their descendants to migrate to urban areas for better opportunities. Sadly, there were no educational institutions or any kind of facilities for villagers to hone their skills.
“No one wants to become a farmer. The young generation wants to flee from the villages. But this is not a bad move. Agriculture in India requires huge investment. If 2 or 3 children from a family get better jobs, they can
plough
their income back to farming. So it is very important that they find good jobs.”
Shuvajit
started off by teaching the village children English. He used several creative techniques and more than 50 of them emerged successful. Along with English, he trained his students in computer skills, confidence development and counselled them from time to time. In fact, two of his students went on to make it big. One of them, a software developer, and the other, an animator.
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“There are schools in villages, but no teachers. If there are teachers, then they don’t come to work. Instead of doling out freebies, the government should make people accountable for work,” he says.
Shuvajit
was called back to become the Program director of the SBI ‘Youth For India’ fellowship and expects the number of fellows to increase to a 100 this year. He still dreams of making education in rural areas a more enriching experience.
“In the education sector, there has been tremendous
initiative
in the area of localized curriculum building. With rising Internet connectivity, making education accessible to larger audience has also become much easier. The government has opened schools in almost all villages, but the teachers don’t inspire students. To move from forced rote learning to real learning, there needs to be a human interface who would motivate students. My effort will be to bring inspiring teachers back into the system.”
Source:
indiatimes
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