For those who don't know, Etasha Society is a Delhi-based NGO that trains disadvantaged young people, so that they may obtain jobs in the organized sector. SIFE SRCC approached Etasha to train rikshaw pullers in spoken English. Mr. Ian McBride and Mrs. Meenakshi Nayar came to our college to discuss the programme.
Unfortunately Mrs. Nayar could stay only for 15 minutes since she had other commitments, but we still had a fun meeting with Mr. Ian. I really hope he isn't reading this post, because he wouldn't like anyone calling him Mr. Ian, or Ian sir. He categorically told us that he is another normal human being and should be called just Ian. Easy thing to do if you've been brought up in Britain, his home country. Not so easy for an Indian. I remember how our school teachers would punish us for not standing up when they entered the classroom. Calling them by their names is a far-fetched thing for us, and very outrageous for them. Mr. Ian (I mean, Ian) says no matter how hard he tries, he simply can't get his Indian students to call him Ian, and he's called everything from Ian sir to Sir ji to Guru ji. LOL.
He is a funny and friendly man. We had our meeting in a classroom, with all of us sitting on the students' desks and him sitting on a special chair facing all of us. He really didn't like that and called it too "formal". Then Jasmine sat with him in the front, to make it a little less formal. Midway through the meeting our faculty advisor also joined us.
What came of the meeting is basically this
- The first batch will consist of about 20 rikshaw pullers.
- Etasha Society will train them in spoken English as well as basic etiquette.
- The programme is about 5-6 weeks long, depending on the response of the class.
- Each lesson would be around 2 hours long. Lessons will happen on 3 days a week.
- There will be one SIFE member present in every class, in case any additional assistance is required during the lesson.
- Rikshaw pullers will be incentivized to attend the classes on time. The incentive could be serving a cup of tea or cold drinks 5 minutes before the class begins.
- Negotiations on the cost are still on. SIFE is trying to fix it at Rs. 2500 per rikshaw puller.
- A trial class will be held this week, tentatively on Thursday or Friday.
- Based on the trial class, Etasha will start developing their teaching module, which will take them 2 weeks.
- SIFE is trying to have the lessons start by the first week of September.
The programme isn't being imposed on anyone and only those rikshaw-pullers who are really willing to take English lessons will be participating.
Another aspect of the programme that Mr. Ian (Sorry, Ian) highlighted is the fact that normally, when a new language is taught to a class, the teaching happens in the target language (English in our case), but that isn't possible with the rikshaw pullers. Hence a bilingual model has to be used. Etasha is using such a model for the first time, so it makes sense to hold a trial class first, which as I mentioned will be happening this week.
We're making progress on our "Life on Wheels" project, SIFE-mates! Keep up the good work! We're busy collecting ID's and filling up bank account opening forms for the rikshaw pullers.
100 rikshaws, 34 days to go.
Comments are very much welcome. Tell us what you're thinking, let us know any ideas you have, or simply tell us what you think of the weather.
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