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Crying from happiness

A poor Indian lady is living under a bridge with her 3 daughters. She has sent her 2 older daughters to a free, Marathi medium school. She is happy that they can be educated, but wishing that she would be able to send at least one of them to an English medium school. Silently she cries out to God, desperate to give her daughters the best available, but knowing that there is simply no way she can afford that. A little later, Agnes, our social worker looks at this poor lady and shares about Bright Star Education. The lady starts crying and happily admits her younger daughter into our school. Isn't that great? The start of is different future is made right here!

Yesterday we completely were taken by surprise when a large group of mothers and children showed up in our classroom. Luckily the classes were over, so we could place them on the tables and the children’s chairs. They all had heard about Bright Star Education through our social worker and came for admission for their little ones. As you might understand, I couldn’t do anything but smile friendly and Sangita could do her job welcoming the parents into our school and explaining all about it.

They are all very excited and all these admissions bring the number of children in our school to 41!

Admissions going on

I'm so exited. At the moment our admissions are going on and so far we got a total of 28 children attending our school daily!!

All of them are children of low- income  families and most of them are from the local slum areas. It is such a blessing to see them come to school with a smile on their face; sometimes even barefoot  because they don't have shoes but exited to come and play...

Can you imagine, not having shoes? I do say that "I have nothing" now and then, but we all know that "having nothing to wear" means something completely different. Even afer living here for more then 7 years, sometimes these things still hit me. The differences  between rich and poor are very, very big.These people live in a home, probably  even smaller then your bedroom with 6 or 7 people. In most families the mother sleeps with her children on a bed or on the floor while  the father or grandparents sleep on another bed, that functions as sofa during the day.

You know, I really believe we can make a difference here. Education is a great beginning of a future filled with hope. Let's get started!!!

Many happy thoughts...

As Monica and I are discussing the day, suddenly the lady of whom we are renting the school enters our classroom. With her head covered with her shawl and hands full of sweets, she starts placing the tiny sweet, colored balls into our hands. Then she touches our feet and her heart with the same hand and leaves the classroom as fast as she came in.

Completely taken by surprise Monica and I start laughing and wondering what this is all about.

The touching of the feet was clear to us, it means that she honors us. This is commonly practiced by Indians; showing your respect to other people by touching their feet. Of course I didn’t want that to happen, because as westerner it makes me feel very uncomfortable when someone is humiliating herself by touching my, in their mind, unclean and unholy feet. But as I said, it was over before we realized what was happening.

When the children came in it became clear to us what the meaning of the sweets was. Sonali came in first and had the same tiny sweets in a little bowl. “Here teacher, eat sweets.” Of course I ate them again. Yea, a healthy start of the day I can say….. while she explained that we eat these particular sweets today “to have many happy thoughts about each other”.

Now, finally I understood what the lady meant when she was giving us the sweets and touching our feet: That we will have a good, sweet relationship while we are renting the school from them.

What a beautiful gesture and what an interesting life we live here!

On the job training

Namrata, one of our older House of Hope girls has joined us in the school.

She is being trained to become a teacher in the future. Monika, a Dutch intern is helping by showing  her how to teach and how to respond to the children in different situations.  Every day they plan out the lessons together and discuss which things to focus on during that day. Namrata is watching Monika most of the lessons and is asking questions about what she doesn't understand yet.Some lessons she is teaching and Monika discusses how it went and which things Namrata needs to work on..

Namrata still needs to work on her English, but is doing very well in picking up learning. In the meantime she is working on her own math exam, for 10th standard. Last year she failed for that and she will try again coming March. The children are enjoying her teaching very much.Look at Tanmay's big smile!! She even comes up with ideas of her own and feels free to try out new and different things. Great job, Namrata!

A new place for our school!

Hello new school!!

I'm so excited. We found a new place for the school an yes, it was on time!!!

And worth waiting for as well: since December 1st, Bright Star Education is located almost next to House of Hope!! No more six seater for these wonderful kids, from now on they just walk to school!

Our new school is located in a two storey building. On the ground floor a family is living and the first and second floor are ours!! On the first floor we teach the nursery and lower kindergarten children and on the second floor is "the office” and the classroom for the older children. The office is really just an old desk that falls apart and a cupboard separating it from the classroom, but it is the idea that counts. I'm ready for it. Last week the owner placed the glass in the windows and he is going to fix the roof later... Yes, things are so different here. Can you imagine renting a home without its windows fixed? But I really can see through these inconveniences and envision many more disadvantaged children receiving quality education in a building with its windows fixed!!!

The last day in our garage

Today is the last day we taught the children in our garage. Funny, but it is kind of sentimental to say goodbye to this place. This is where it all started, the very beginning of Bright Star Education. Coming Monday we will move house and from then onwards the school will no longer be in our garage.
We still haven't found a new school yet but yes, I know that there's a time for everything. And obviously this is the time for waiting (again). The question is only how long, since it is Friday today and we have packed everything....

Anyway we are planning to keep the school closed until December 1st. From that time onwards we will reach out to the slum areas in our new neigbourhood. I'm so excited about the fact that we are offering quality education for the disadvantaged. Isn’t it great? Children that normally cannot get (English) education at all, will get a change and hope for a much better future!