February 6, 2025

Power of Parikrma

Last week, Parirkma asked us to interview 60 children in first and second grade. They wanted us to create student profiles for donors, a picture of the student smiling – followed by two paragraphs about their lives, favorite things, and what they like about school formulated a game plan for nervous children- playing jazz music quietly in the background and showing them a one-minute cartoon when they were finished. This task, I assumed, would be easy and fun. I wrote down a list of open-ended questions to start.
Kanya is six and she runs very fast. Four students say that she is their best friend, but she says her best friend is named Selvini.  She likes to draw birds and do jumping jacks. What do you want to do when you’re older? I ask her. Save money in the post office. Pass her exam. Go somewhere to see animals, she doesn’t know her favorite. 
Anthony is 8. He likes hide and seek and red-colored bugs. What makes you happy, I ask. When gets home to see his sister. She’s 15 he says. I ask where she goes to school and he shakes his head. She can’t go to school, he says. She can’t talk. He likes to read her storybooks from school.
Manog is 6 and he loves computers. He wants to type on mine. I like to play games on computers he says, please let me see. What do you want to study when you are older? I ask. “Laptop typing”. Manog wants to be a policeman because he likes eating donuts.  His dream is to go on a plane.
Nanden is six. He is happy because his teacher said his handwriting is neat. He loves computers and wants to type on mine. I like to play games on computers he says, please let me see. “What is your dream? I ask him.  I have to see a sunny day, and I have to go on a picnic!” 
Kruthrika is 7 and she says Kanya is her best friend. She knows her times tables up to one hundred and likes to read books about God. What do you want to do when you’re older? I ask her. “To help mother get a house. Go back to the village, and see the grass, trees, grandma, and sister.” Are you visiting soon? I shouldn’t have asked this.
“The village is far away”, she tells me. “Not going there again,” I ask what makes her happy and she looks down. She’s upset.
School makes you happy, right? You love to see your teacher, and your best friend!” I let her watch a five-minute video so she feels better, but when I take her picture her smile is still strained.  
When I get home, I feel drained. I felt like a failure. I made a little girl sad. Maybe I didn’t cause the problem, but I made her remember it. And that was enough to upset her. I had trouble sleeping that night. 
The next day we arrived for an early start. I switched to the younger class but heard a voice call my name in the hallway. Kanya grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door of her class. The students echoed my name and smiled and waved, Kruthikra included. They asked if I was staying for the week and if I was coming back tomorrow.
This time I could see they were happy and genuinely happy at that. They were happy to be learning, happy to be with each other, and happy to meet someone new. My guilty feelings began to diminish.
I felt lucky to see the beneficiaries of our work smiling at us in real time. Seeing them throughout the week has inspired our team to work harder, to go the extra mile. And this is just the beginning. 
Today is week two of our internship, where we will meet the Sun (kindergarten) and Venus (second grade) classes. In these interviews, we are sure to hear many new things. Things that make us smile and maybe more things that keep us up at night. But every time we return to Pairikrma each day, we will know 10 new names. We will have 10 faces that we want to keep smiling. We will be 10 times more motivated to create an impact that matters.

By,
Olive