Roddur ,the sunshine and our dreams to create a better world

    Continuing from the previous article. So the question still remains open  "Why do we need  Roddur, when we already have Pratyasha". To answer that question we have to look into the contemporary education system of India. We, the five started that journey together but along the way two of them became busy with other organizations, so now mainly three of us, Pronobesh, Sourit (who became professor of prestigious Glasgow University)and I from the old team, are actively thinking about the organization along with the new members, unfortunately, I don't know everyone's name. 

Anyway, so the current education system is here to produce clerk, engineers who can not think beyond the syllabus. The exceptional students would choose to be Doctor, scientist or scholars, which is very challenging considering the current government education policies(I am not talking about this current policy, which seems to me be more like imaginary rather than realistic one and we are not going to discuss that here.let's keep it for another post).In the current education system, there is no value for sports, music or other creative arenas, which is a must needed thing to transform a teenager into a complete human being. I know how we were pushed to become a good student rather than becoming a good human. Though I was lucky enough in this matter despite having rough and dark times in my educational life. At Maternal Uncle's home, grandfather taught the necessary things that needed to survive in life. But now when we see the pupils are not having time to play outside or they are taking sports as a subject and learning it professionally rather than enjoying it. Parents are putting pressure to get them ahead of this rat race. But those students are from the privileged class. Our focus was towards the underprivileged or deprived students, those who don't get opportunities like their counterparts have.

      So we wanted a system of education which could be a model for modern education in future, realistic or not.we were thinking of providing free coaching classes to those students from a relatively poor background. And for that, we would have to have a place which we could use as a classroom. One woman from the locality near Alipurduar Railway station told us that we can use her land to build the classroom .she is poor, but she did not hesitate to donate her land for education, because she(Pushpa di) and her children did have that the opportunity to get a proper education. Anyway, we started to build our classroom with bamboo fenced wall and tin roof. Pronobesh and Nabakumar were monitoring the teaching works initially and Sijal supervised the construction work, in the later phase, Nabakumar joined another charity organization.

     so as Pronobesh has a network of people around the locality due to his social and political image, it was initially easy to get volunteers.so for few months the number of teachers was almost same as the number of students. We had difficulty to bring students to the classroom, as parents were seeing our teachers were teaching things that are out of syllabus or which are not bookish. In the later phase, Biman did set up the second branch of  Roddur at his home, which was not fully free but we would collect token money of Rs 40 to convey the importance of it to those parents. this branch is now not functional.

      other than providing lessons about math, science, history and literature we would organize drama workshop.there were Dance classes, karate classes (Shibu da, the blackbelt, was teaching the technics).For a few months, there were some Yoga classes organized. Once a Mime artist came from Kolkata to take mime class for a week. we almost reached to the mark of 40 students.

       overall we tried to provide them with the complete package to become a human being for free, actually, we wanted to see them grow so that they don't need money from charity, rather they can earn the money by themselves.

         other than providing classroom teaching, Members of Roddur organizes awareness programs. Biman and Ankit did a cycle Rally from Alipurduar to Siliguri and back to spread awareness about the rights of children. Roddur organized an excursion to nearby Rajabhatkhawa forest and museum. Blood donation camps were frequent before the Lockdown, and Biman and Pronobesh would take charge of organizing those. Roddur also used to organize programs like Rabindra Jayanti, independence day or Saraswati puja. The programs related to saving nature and environment, like planting trees, were common. Initially, My brother and cousin brother and sister were trying actively to help the organization grow. 

         But the issue with this kind of non-profit organization is that people who are not motivated enough will lose enthusiasm after a few months. Roddur also was not an exception. We lose a few members due to lack of enthusiasm. They might have imagined Roddur as something else and made themselves disappointed. But we also found new members joining it. 

        I guess volunteers also have learned something from the journey with Roddur. They have the chance to see the underprivileged classes from that close. Only those volunteer with knowledge and enough enthusiasm to learn would realize the fact, they will know how privileged they are and will continue to do good things towards society. This experience will become a treasure for them along the way

      Roddur went through difficult times, time to time, but never had that fear of having this organization going to shut down completely until the Corona came. The premises is close now, but surely it will open soon, to keep our dreams "to make the world a better place" alive.