An American spring for underprivileged students
Amy Partridge teaches exercise steps to students of Parijat Academy.
Deepika Patar, Guwahati (Apr 27): Sankar Bongjang rattles off English alphabets, and that too with an American accent. So does many of his friends like Seuti, Neha, Susmita, Bikash, Ganesh, and Mohan who no longer considers themselves underprivileged, thanks to the pioneering work of a young volunteer from the US.
Each morning, the children of Parijat Academy – a school for the underprivileged — eagerly wait for their new English taken, Amy Partridge. Amy Partridge, who hails from Georgia in the US, is rendering voluntary service only to communicate with the underprivileged children of Parijat Academy, located at the outskirt of the city at Pamohi village Kamrup.
This is Amy’s first tour to India where she selected the Parijat Academy for her volunteer work. She joined the Parijat Academy as an English educator on April 2 and will complete her tenure on May 4.
“I am very happy with my work. Assamese people are really very helpful and they try to understand what I say. Moreover, the children of Parijat Academy are also co-operating with me a lot,” Amy told the Seven Sisters Post.
The Academy was established in the year 2003, and at present there are as many as 500 students belonging to economically-weak families of 14 tribal villages.
“Literacy rate is very poor in this area, where school dropout is high here. Most of the students of our academy were school dropouts from nearby Garbhanga village,” informed Uttam Teron, the founder of the Academy.
Speaking about the problems faced by Amy while teaching the students of the Academy, Amy said, “It is a challenge for me to exchange knowledge with 500 students alone. Moreover, there is a communication problem with the students for which I took help of the English and the Assamese teachers of the Academy for translation.”
Amy has worked in various schools and non-profit organisations in various countries like in Korea and Hungary as a volunteer educator of English. Amy told this reporter that she is very interested in teaching the students of Parijat for their eagerness and promised to visit the school again. Amy Partridge teaches exercise steps to students of Parijat Academy.
“When I will go back to my place, I will convey the message among my people to help the underprivileged children through education. And next time when I will visit this school, I will bring a team of academicians from US.”
No comments:
Post a Comment