Overall, my experience at Sshrishti has been a powerfully instructional and extremely fulfilling experience, and one of my favorites from my semester in India. I came in to the experience with an expansive list of goals which, now I realize, were quite overly ambitious. I soon found out that, especially in a small Indian community-based NGO like Sshrishti, things don’t always go as planned, and it is necessary to be flexible. By learning this important lesson, I was able to adapt to the opportunities readily available and contribute toward the areas where Sshrishti really needs help. By focusing on a few specific projects, I was able to have a much greater impact than I would have otherwise.
My service took place mostly at two of Sshrishti’s centers: Jai Hind Camp and the main Learning Center (SLC). Jai Hind was where I was placed originally, but entering a slum for the first time so soon after arriving to India was incredibly shocking, and I switched to the SLC for a time, as it served a similar population without being located within a slum itself. At SLC, I typically spent my time teaching independently, not alongside a teacher as I had originally expected. I also soon realized that my teaching would not be exclusively English, as with the frequent teacher absenteeism, it was quite common for me to cover math and computer lab classes as well. Some other challenges I faced at SLC were the unplanned and completely unpredictable schedule of which classes I would be working with and in which subjects. This made it basically impossible to prepare lessons ahead of time, so I definitely learned the value of flexibility. Probably the most difficult challenge for me was witnessing violence in the classroom, both among students and between teachers and students. Luckily, I was eventually able to have an open conversation about these issues with my volunteer supervisor, and she took action to help me address this issue.
For my last month at Sshrishti, I ended up returning to Jai Hind Camp. Truth be told, I had been secretly disappointed with myself ever since I decided to switch volunteer placements, so I eventually racked up the courage to return to the slum school, and am so, so glad that I did. At Jai Hind I performed a similar role teaching, but I felt much more freedom to integrate new educational games and other activities instead of following exactly what was outlined in the syllabus. I think the children definitely enjoyed this, too. I also got to help serve the midday meal and create some new posters for the bare slum classroom. At Jai Hind, the major challenge was to overcome my initial fear of the unknown and shock that I felt upon viewing such poverty as I have never seen before. After that, the obstacles in the classroom were more related to the language barrier and lack of facilities and teaching materials. It was sometimes also difficult to find activities that worked with such a wide range of ability levels.
Lastly, in my work at Sshrishti’s main office, I decided to limit my projects in order to manage my time better and ensure I was doing the best job I could for each one. I did a lot of work improving the English skills used in their brochures, website, and educational materials. By far my favorite project was conducting interviews of students to gather Sshrishti “success stories” of students who are thriving in school thanks to the opportunities provided by the organization. These will be used in the website, promotional materials, annual reports, and other materials sent to donors. In this area as well as other aspects of my service at Sshrishti, the language barrier was always difficult. My projects were also set back a little bit by the fairly quick turnover of employees in the office. I also faced some technical difficulties, but was able to remedy these by bringing in my own computer to use.
All in all, I have truly cherished my time at Sshrishti. I’ll miss the kids so much and wish I’d had the opportunity to come to the site more and become even closer with my students! Serving at Sshrishti also definitely helped me understand my host culture in a new light. In my classes this semester, we've talked a lot about India's poor--how they got there, how caste factors in, how they make money, and how they can improve their situation in life. By actually immersing myself within this community, entering a slum, observing migrant workers and ragpickers, and interviewing them to actually get to know them as people, I've had an amazing opportunity that I probably wouldn't have had otherwise. I know I'll never forget the people I've met and memories I've made at Sshrishti, and definitely plan to stay connected to them once the school year starts.