OSAP - Nourishing minds, shaping characters

OSAP-Nourishing minds, Shaping characters 

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime “

 -Maimonides     

           AASRA, a non-profit organisation started by a group of students of NIT Rourkela in the year 2005, understands the magnanimity of these lines and strives to uplift and reach out to the underprivileged sections of the society, providing educational background to the children and employment opportunities to the adults. Presently, the AASRA family has grown enormously and has spread its wings of service over seven workplaces and OSAP is one of them.

           OSAP is one of the oldest workplaces of Aasra started during the initial days of Aasra and is around 6-7km away from the NITR campus. Surrounded by beautiful mountains and scenery, it has a peaceful village atmosphere. The workplace is named for its location in Odisha Special Armed Police colony. All the OSAP workplace lands come under the forest department, SAIL and OSAP. There are around 45-55 families residing in OSAP. It is one among those underdeveloped areas where children lack proper education and opportunities. The majority of people here are daily wage workers.

“The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

- Helen Keller

The workplace has around 40 members collectively working to provide better educational foundation to the children by regularly visiting the workplace for 3-4 days in a week. Mostly transportation of members is carried out via auto. Being welcomed by happy smiling faces of the children greeting the members with love and respect creates a new zeal and enthusiasm inside each member to help educate these blooming innocent buds of the society. The members work relentlessly to follow a schedule, hold meetings, devise plans and aware and educate people of the workplace. With collective efforts plans are executed for the betterment of the workplace people. A proper syllabus is made class-wise for the children of the workplace by evaluating their individual strengths and weaknesses through basic level exams and individual evaluation; that syllabus is followed by each member to teach children and a register is maintained for keeping an eye on the progress of teaching. The members are focused more on all round development of a child rather than only studies. Apart from teaching, the problems of the workplace are also addressed by the members and people are made aware of their rights, government opportunities and schemes, employment opportunities, cleanliness and healthy habits by members.

“Receive the children in reverence, educate them in love, and send them forth in freedom”

-Rudolf Steiner

The honest, sincere and selfless efforts have made our members an integral part of the lives of workplace people. These people have become a family apart from family. Apart from promoting education, the members of OSAP also celebrate several festivals with the residents of OSAP including Raksha Bandhan, Diwali, Holi, and several others. Along with these we celebrate some festivals which are unique to our workplace like Nua Khai, Dhuni Puja etc. We yearly celebrate a feast just for our workplace to have a binding experience not only with members but also with the children. Although some children are not good at studies, they are very talented in other activities like dance, singing, drawing, sports etc. So, events like dance, drawing, story writing, debate, singing, sports are conducted to enhance their skills and are felicitated to encourage them more. AASRA’s annual event at Innovision LSY (Little Science Yard) is one of the events about which the kids are always excited about. Here the kids prepare different science projects with models and explain it to the judges and viewers. AASRA’s foundation day celebrated every year also provides children of every workplace an opportunity to showcase their talent and earn rewards. Those students who perform well in studies are given special attention for JNVST (Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Selection Test) and other scholarship tests. Peer learning is followed and encouraged in the workplace which evolves the spirit of a teacher in them. The club also provides employment to the people of the workplace through an initiative called “Diya Project '', which is conducted during Diwali. The underemployed women make diyas which are sold in the campus by our members, generating seasonal employment for them. 

       The sincerity of our alumni has always pushed the members to keep serving the OSAP people and implement new ideas there for a better tomorrow. With the help of alumni some project ideas were implemented in our workplace such as:

· Last year two water purifiers with attached reservoirs were installed at the workplace to save people from typhoid which was caused due to unhygienic drinking water.

· Poultry farming was started by Raj Kishore and Anant of the workplace with the guidance of our alumni Ajay bhai and Siddharth bhai and other alumni donated the required money to start the farm, but as a loan which was to be returned to AASRA fund later. The farmhouse was made at the start of 2019 and by April they had started farming and throughout the summer they tried to continue but as the monsoon arrived the business got harder to continue due to no profit, they then tried to open a chicken meat shop to continue but finally they had to abandon it.

· By January 2020 the ladies started utilizing the farm house to do mushroom farming with guidance from sector 21 ladies group, the business was going smoothly and they were selling the mushroom to locals of Nanda Pada but later due to a sudden storm the house was completely destroyed during March.

        Though we had a series of failures due to circumstances, the workplace people have learnt a lot and now are able to implement new ideas on their own without much help from us.

        Over the recent years, the OSAP workplace has improved a lot, be it in terms of business ventures, social awareness or educational system itself. Fighting with various odds, many of our workplace students are striving for better future. Recently Arikhit has bagged a job in Royal Enfield in Chennai and has proved to be an inspiration in the workplace. This year Kamini and Ranjan have passed 10th board exams with flying colors. Meena is working at Madras Coffee House in Pune, since December 2019.Anjana who is pursuing her B.com is currently preparing for banking. The club aims to make the workplace self-sufficient.

        Even if the OSAP workplace has travelled a long journey of development since its foundation, still it faces some problems in the present. Child Marriage is one such huge problem, especially among girl students. After completing matriculation, their parents are getting them married. So, several times we have arranged meetings with their parents to avoid this kind of problem for a better future of their girl child and also have organised many awareness programs regarding this.

 

“If the fire in your heart is strong enough, it will burn away any obstacles that come your way.”

― Suzy Kassem

        With Coronavirus pandemic disturbing the normal lives of the people and disconnecting the members from the children, a big barrier has come up between the students and their education but the sincerity and will power of the members and the students have collectively found a passage of light through the barriers in their way of education. An online teaching program named “Sikho Sikhao Dur Se “was implemented in which members taught the students through online video chatting and online materials were provided to them. Our teaching plan continued successfully for a month but due to poor network and internet connection the plan didn’t work further. The plan was improved by involving few old workplace members like Anjana, Arikhit, Raj Kishore, Devaki, Hemant etc. who taught the students in the evening under the guidance of our members.

Words from some senior members of OSAP:

 

Plavak Bhaiya:

    “The bond between the children at OSAP and members is very beautiful and ever growing. New members of AASRA hardly need a few days to completely mingle with the children there. The bond further strengthens during various festivals, where members and children celebrate together with lots of love and joy of togetherness. Over the recent years, the OSAP workplace has improved a lot. In terms of the educational system, a proper syllabus and plan to carry out the lessons system was introduced which has worked quite well. Child marriage is an issue which still is prevalent, although members are trying hard to create awareness about it. Hopefully, conditions would get better ahead. To sum up, it has all been about making bonds, memories to cherish forever and growing together simultaneously”.

 

Suraj Bhaiya:

    “Initially when I joined Aasra I knew that this was a club which works for the betterment of the society by helping the relatively less privileged groups. AASRA is much more than only teaching, it’s like a family discussing problems and coming up with ideas together to create a viable solution. Our seniors have built such a deep bond with not only the children there but also all the occupants there that going there always feels like visiting a very familiar place. The people there are so kind and humble.They take us seriously even when they are much older than us, they listen to our side of the story when any idea or solution is proposed. They invite us on special occasions. It is very nice, there are times when I am tired of the 8-5 classes at college but after visiting OSAP, meeting the kids and returning back to the hostel in the evening I would feel refreshed. After some time of visiting the workplace and mixing up with the children, I just wanted to go there to meet the kids rather than doin it just because of the schedule only. There were times when I would go with Amlan and Debashish on our bicycle all the way to OSAP. It was really fun. At first, I had difficulty teaching those kids because I was new and also because I generally don’t talk much. But one day I remember asking Hema and Surendra a river crossing puzzle and after sometime they also started to open up to me and asked me some riddles. Then there was Asha who loves to write English in beautiful handwriting. She would always ask me to tell words in English that she would later write in her notebook and show it to me even though I would be teaching her math. I also got to know Akash, he would always be busy doing some mischief but he would curiously listen to me and think whenever I would ask him some brain teasers. They all indeed have grown up a little but to me they will always be the same kids I saw when I first visited OSAP”.

 Parth Bhaiya:

    “I had joined Aasra in August, 2019 and had been assigned as a member of OSAP. On the first day of my visit to OSAP, I was given a tour of the place. The place has the essence of peace that every village has. The people there are quite lively and sincere with their emotions. They live in small houses; yet the small houses encompass large homes, one of those things that you can expect from Indian villages. Every day of our visit had a single routine: we board the auto (almost always an auto belonging to OSAP), reach the sector and then we call the students from their homes and we meet at the common study site. There, the kids approach us enthusiastically spreading out their hands and greeting us with a warm “Good Evening”. Then the students are assigned to us for teaching based on their class and we start teaching them. At the end we wrap our lessons and bid them goodbye, going back to NIT in the same auto which brought us to the sector. Earlier I had mentioned about a “single routine”, but do not mistake it for “monotonous routine” because each visit to the sector is a fresh, different experience. The members of OSAP have carried out a lot of activities for the welfare and financial upliftment of the sector. 

    Right now, in the midst of Corona, our students in OSAP are unable to attend their schools and we are unable to visit them. But as Mark Twain once said, “I have never allowed my schooling get in the way of my education”, we have tried our best in continuing their education. However, the most wonderful aspect is that the students themselves continued to educate themselves. The senior students teach the junior students and we reach out to them through telephone calls, web chats and online video meetings. OSAP as a family has continued its quest in helping themselves and others grow both at a personal and societal level.”

 

         OSAP workplace has ended up being more than a family for all. Most of the members feel rooted to the kids at an emotional level.  Like a family they care for the students and like a teacher they work hard for the success of the students. It has been a dream of each member to see their students fly high with the wings of freedom and success. OSAP is grateful to all its members who are keen to do any work provided to them. The club strives to achieve its goal of educating, enlightening and uplifting the underdeveloped ones.

         If you want to experience some true emotions, have real enjoyment and feel the real essence of life, do visit OSAP and when you reach there, assuredly you will be greeted with genuine smiles with hands reaching out and greeting “Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening. 

  Content by Swagatika Biswal