How life at Kedi impact the future of student

Daksha belongs to a very small tribal village, situated amongst the hills of Vindhyachal in Narmada district. Her family is extremely poor. She lost her father three years back and since then, being the eldest child, every monsoon, she goes home to till their tiny hilly farmland by herself.

Daksha, during the initial few months at Kedi, had a low self-esteem as she had travelled to a town like Dharampur for the first time hence was looking confused and scared. She had attended the primary school in her native area but her learning was negligible. Fortunately, she was ready to learn and make progress. Due to democratic environment and hands on, experiential teaching learning methodology along with the emphasis on acquiring life skills and financial independence at Kedi, she started blooming. Daksha turned out to be the fast learner who also willingly started taking up other responsibilities by demonstrating leadership qualities. After graduating from high school with 78%, she decided to join a very prestigious T. And T.V. School of Nursing at Surat. Daksha has a very bright future because she is already invited by few doctors to work with them once she graduates from nursing school.

Sunita’s story is unique in many ways. She is a fourth batch student who dropped out from Kedi after 9th standard and was not in touch with us since then. One fine morning, after 8 years, Sunita gave us a surprise by showing up at Kedi to ask for guidance regarding resuming her learning at Kedi. When asked why she wanted to continue after such a long interval, her reply brought tears of joy in our eyes. By that time she had two children, daughter age 5.5 and a son age 2.5. Sunita said that she wanted to help her children with quality education that she was fortunate enough to acquire at Kedi and create a conducive and encouraging ambiance for learning in her family. Hearing such words from a tribal lady, where education still does not have much importance, we were encouraged to find a solution.

Education board had already changed the examination format that she was not familiar with and on top of it she had to travel 20KM to and fro, everyday. We were in a dilemma because we wanted to encourage her to continue her Education but her circumstances were not favourable.

Kedi mentors provided her personal guidance and all the learning material. Her sincere efforts paid off and she cleared the board exam successfully. At Kedi, all of our learners are the first generation tribal girls like Sunita who are getting a chance to know the world around them and being more aware of their right to education. Kudos to this girls and their courage to face the world that is different than their own. Sunita is a prime example of how Kedi mentors can gently guide and shape their thinking about understanding the importance for their next generation’s education and make them aware of going back to their roots to help the community.

The important fact that Kedi learners are future mothers, compels us to work more sincerely towards their intellectual, emotional, physical and financial development so that they can be a catalyst to progress of the future generation keeping their cultural identity intact.

Hansa used to smile and hide her notebook every time she was asked to either solve mathematical sums or write something. Although she was very much eager to learn, she used to shy away from participating in the group learning activities or answering any questions. Eventually Kedi trustees and mentors, together found out that she was dyslexic and since then, we started paying more attention to her problem and providing her special treatment with her learning. She started opening up and participating in group activities.

After graduating from high school, she joined a nursing school to be a bedside nurse. To our happy surprise, she is working as a Nurse and living at Surat, with financial independence and pride.

Hansa was an eye opening example for us to classify how learners perceive the process of learning and which methodology they respond the most. Mentors are trained to recognize this and treat the learners accordingly, without them feeling any difference.

Rashma entered Kedi from 8th standard and graduated in five years with humanities subjects. Unfortunately, knowing her family’s financial condition, she decided to start working to be helpful so that the younger siblings can continue their education.

At Kedi, acquiring vocational skills is given equal importance and is the part of curriculum. Rashma, academically, was an average learner but she was very much interested in cutting and stitching, block printing and other crafts, especially Jute bags, and cloth bags. These skills helped Rashma land a job with an apparel industry and because she could read and understand instructions written in English, within a short time became a supervisor. That was just a beginning. In a year’s time she was offered floor supervisor’s position and soon after she was promoted to the general supervisor’s post.

She constantly keeps in touch and keeps us informed about her progress. Rashma has a strong willpower and positive attitude towards life. She is quite resolute about providing good education to her children.

Preeti and Vasanti, both friends, came from Vyara, Tapi district. Vyara is a midsized town where there are choices to attend any high school. However, they decided to travel 80kms to Kedi as they didn’t wish to attend a school with regular Chalk and Board Teaching. Kedi provided them conducive and encouraging environment and motivated them for higher learning.

After graduating from the high school, they chose Electrical engineering field and are working with Larson and Tubro for past four years. Recently, they both found partner to share their life with and are well adjusted with both, work and life.

This story is about a runaway girl Rekha. One morning she showed up at Kedi and started talking about how she ran away, at the age of 8, convincing her three siblings, because their father had stabbed their mother, under the influence of alcohol and because of the infected wound, the mother had died. They lived on railway platforms, frequently moving from one place to another for 2 to 3 years. During this time, she took care of her siblings and could keep them safe. I wondered where she learned to speak with such clarity of thoughts, confidence and ease.

Rekha was very happy to see all the other girls at Kedi and immediately becamethecenter ofattention. All the learners assumed responsibility to help her learn Alphabets and Numbers just the way they had learnt in their primary schools. Rekha had no previous schooling of any kind.She was 13, but her exuberant outlook seemed to radiate a high level of energy. Her probing mind was mounting endless questions, often difficult to answer but extremely thought provoking.

After few days, Rekha came to me and declared that she does not want to learn any more as learning is quite confusing. I asked why she thought so. She told me that if letters can be combined arbitrarily to form words, then why had her co-learners made her learn them alphabetically?

Rekha challenged the established norms of the typical education system designed through an adult’s perspective and is completely insensitive to children’s psychology or the way in which children analyze and view things.She came to gain knowledge and in turn educated the other learners and mentors at Kedi.

While Vanita was at Kedi, she was quiet and perceptive child who modestly took charge of duties and chores by a sheer understanding of its necessity, a trait that cannot be overlooked.

The learning process at Kedi made Vanita aware of women’s issues within her community. Along with this, the incidence of her friend who, in spite of being malnourished, went through three consecutive pregnancies at a very young age, made a lasting impact on her mind.

Vanita completed her college education, has a good job and is married. But she has also independently taken up responsibility to spread the awareness about women’s right, strength and need for her personal development. She promotes women’s right of determining the right age for child bearing, having sufficient time between pregnancies, right of having adequate nutrition and healthcare and gender equality.

During the informal discussions with learners, we bring up various social problems. One of the assignments is how to learn to recognize Women’s Rights issues, her Health related matters and Other Social Issues prevalent in their communities. For few days, they are encouraged to live with the community, other than their own, which change their perception towards such social issues and sensitize them.

Divya, our second batch student, was a free-spirited extrovert young girl with leadership traits. Her child-like nature filled the school campus ambiance with laughter and playfulness, being responsible and sincere at the same time. She learned quickly from their mentors, resource persons and surrounding environment as she was a motivated self learner with open mind and lots of curiosity. Mentors recognised her learning ability and provided orientation, leading her towards her career as Architectural assistant from local polytechnic. She is working with an engineering firm for last three years and loves learning new concepts every day.

Gita was bold and outspoken learner and came from a very remote forest area near the Gujarat -Maharashtra border. There was a shade of aggression in her behavior that needed to be channelized to help her attain control and focus. Within a year’s time she turned into an alert listener, enthusiastically absorbing and observing everything around her. Her one stand in life against established social norms, gave her strength beyond expectation.

During the summer break after the IX standard exams, when she returned to her village, her father had already found a suitable boy for Gita and announced that the wedding date was set after 12 days. Stunned to hear this, she tried to protest in every way but to no avail! One night, she slipped out to go and metthe boy's family, who were living on the other side of the reservoir, of the dam, woke up one boat owner and requested to take her to the village on the other bank. The boat owner’s wifereprimanded Gita for being irresponsible to travel alone at night but they did help her. Gita knockedthe door. Her future mother-in-law opened it, shocked to see Gita at that time of the night asked why she had come?

Gita replied that she had come to request them to call off the engagement. When her in-laws asked for the reason, she said that she wanted to continue her education and would like to become a teacher. Her in-laws were thrilled to hear about her aspirations and promised her that she would be able to continue her education at Kedi even after getting married and they fulfilled their promise.

After completing her education, she started living with her husband and now has two beautiful and healthy children. Then she came to know that her husband had started drinking and had broken Gita’s trust by breaking his promise of not to touch alcohol. Warnings didn’t help hence one day Gita left her husband saying that she would not come back till he quits drinking and that she would take care of children by herself. The story has a happy ending because her husband knew how confident and determined she is to stand on her own feet and live an independent life; he quit his habit and has been sober for last five years. They are back together again.

At present, Gita is working as a teacher in a remote area school. She is a prime example of how the right environment instills the love for learning and gives one confidence to negotiate to fulfill their aspiration.

Previous students of Kedi; Dipika, Ramila and Kailas got admission in one of the nursing school in Karnataka, South India, a 24hours journey by train, where neither they knew any one nor were they much accustomed to the language of medium of instruction. Every year many volunteer from different countries and from all walks of life and field come to Kedi. During their stay they actively participate in day to day activities. This interaction gives opportunities to use communicative English that later gives them confidence to converse. Kedi guides to develop self confidence to face and adverse situation. These kinds of experiences helped them to survive in an unfamiliar environment.

After completing their BSc Nursing, at present, they all are financially independent and working with a renowned hospital in their native region as Operation Theatre and ICU nurses.