Foe to Friend

Image courtesy: Google

I nestled quiet and sleeping

in the deep darkness soothing,

blissful oblivion of awakening light

nurturing slumber in a permanent night.

Rays that enlightened I feared,

unending darkness I cheered.

My formidable foe clad in colours of light

once came knocking at my door shut tight.

“Darkness  my friend, lend a hand!”

my cries echoed in the surrounding sand

where I lay, a dormant seed

an ignorant, insignificant bead.

Blinded soon by a beam so bright

I watched helpless, a losing fight;

the miracle brought joy in the end

of turning foe into a friend.

In the warm embrace of bright rays

of knowledge, promising meaningful days,

I danced and swayed in sheer bliss

of a new found friend’s loving kiss.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.
Linking to : http://www.writetribe.com/write-tribe-pro-blogger-challenge/
and http://ultimateblogchallenge.com/ 

Share a Tiffin

Image courtesy: Google

With just a day left for the Blog to Feed a Child campaign to end, I thought of writing one more post to do my tiny bit in eliminating classroom hunger. The number of young stomachs that go hungry in India is huge and classroom hunger is one of the reasons behind students dropping out of schools. Want of money for meals drives children away from school, to work as labourers, mechanics, cleaners and cooks.

If the RTE and all other campaigns towards ensuring better and equal opportunities in education for all children of India are to bear fruit, elimination of classroom hunger is a must. The government already has a mid-day meal programme running and several NGOs notably the Akshaya Patra foundation are doing a great job in this regard. But the number of mouths to be fed far exceeds the output of these community kitchens and there have been serious flaws in the execution of the mid-day meal programme of the government.

So it is time to share responsibility with the government and do our bit as voluntary groups, corporates, NGOs social workers or just as a citizen who cares. Here is a suggestion for what we can do as individuals at a more personal level than donating for the cause.

Sharing Your Tiffin

The basic idea is to encourage children to volunteer to carry extra tiffin box to share with a needy class/school mate. Share a tiffin programme can be of use especially in private schools which enrol students from underprivileged backgrounds through the RTE act. Very often being a minority in private schools, these children face ridicule and isolation by teachers and students that makes them drop out. Added to this the problems of poverty and hunger makes them flee from the intellectual demands of academics. Due to the small number of such children in these schools, there is hardly any NGO that supplies them food.

Nutritional and social inclusion of children can be made possible if sharing a tiffin box is encouraged. It involves other children of the school (along with their parents) volunteering to take up responsibility of sharing a meal (nutritional food) with one class mate from a less privileged background for a certain period of time. Given the diversity of eating habits, number of kids admitted through RTE and their needs, the programme can be implemented differently in different contexts. The whole idea is to bring together kids, socially and emotionally over a tiffin box.

    I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.

Food for thought

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  Image courtesy: Akshaya Patra Foundation

  
  
   One crisp Bangalore morning as I walked to school enthralled by the warm sunshine and the cool breeze, I was startled by a voice that called out “Vidya Akka!” from somewhere behind me. I turned to see one of my students, a 13 year old boy running towards me. Gasping for breath, he said he wanted to walk with me to school. Both of us were glad to have company during the 20 minute walk and so we talked. He asked me about my daily routine, family and so on. I answered him and asked him the same. He said he played after going home, bathed, did his homework, studied if he felt like and then slept.                                                                                                     
  

   I felt that he had missed out something. “What about dinner?” I asked candidly. It was only when he stared at me without an answer for two whole seconds did I realise my stupidity. I felt really bad but I couldn’t take back my words, instead chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to change the topic. It was too late. He said “I don’t have dinner Akka. The food we get from school is all that I eat.” I was speechless. Thankfully we had reached school by then. He waved and ran to play with his friends.                                                                                                                                     

  I felt so silly. I had taken for granted everything that life had given me- food, clothing, shelter, loving family and friends, education, career, health and so many other things. My thoughts were interrupted by the school bell to remind us of breakfast time. As the students lined up for a helping of chitranna (lemon rice) I felt so glad that the school provided breakfast, lunch and ragi malt in the evening. It made sure the kids were not hungry in the classroom and could be attentive in class without growling stomachs to distract them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

   Akshayapatra Foundation of ISKCON provides food to all the students of the school as part of its mid-day meal programme. Along with other factors, the mid-day meal initiative plays a crucial role in bringing many students to school, who would otherwise have landed up as child workers or would never have come to school. Thanks to various other benevolent people, breakfast and nutritious ragi malt are also given to all children from kindergarten to 10^th standard. They are given boiled eggs twice a week. Many children like my 13 year old student don’t eat anything after going home. If government schools and NGOs provide basic nutrition to students, it will definitely attract them back to class, prevent drop outs to an extent and ensures that the child is energetic enough to absorb the knowledge he/she is being fed with. It also ensures that more girls are sent to school and not kept at home for domestic work.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

  I hope I can fuel a child’s hunger for knowledge as a teacher and satiate his/her hunger for food as a blogger. I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.
• (This is an initiative by BlogAdda which will sponsor meals for an Akshaya Patra beneficiary for an entire year for each blog that is written about this)
• P.S- Don't wait to think. Be the change!
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