Catching the young to Coach

 In Tamil there is a saying ' The leg used to dancing will not stand still' (ஆடின கால் நிக்காது). 

Like the popular bank which claims never to sleep, my mind which was running ahead of me was egging me on with the next act, after my meets with the elders. 

Even a decade back during my days of association with corporates, after interviewing many candidates used to wonder how badly they miss their opportunities due to lack of expression and communication. Ever since, I have been wanting to catch the young and help them in honing their skills, which could convert opportunities to achievements. Unlike the 80 kids, the present generation is far ahead in their pursuit but I feel that proper guidance and mild course corrections could convert more into achievers from also-ran. 

Then I came across this organization which is building and encouraging 'a crazy team of volunteers', keen on supporting the young and needy. The organization ( https://www.teameverest.ngo/) not only support the young with scholarship but also help them with soft and other skills required to make them beat the race and turn achievers. The organization, in operation for over 15 years, seems to have trained thousands of educationally poor and needy, with some dedicated volunteers from across the globe. One of the few areas that the current pandemic does not seem to have impacted is this type of coaching as everything related to this is online. Right from orientation of volunteers to five sessions with the chosen student, coaching handbook for volunteers to the feedback session for students, the organization has wisely chosen the online route where all that is required for the student to benefit is a mobile phone, which almost everyone seems to possess irrespective of their economic status. 

Though it was hard to believe the experienced and committed CEO, who is learnt to have given up his lucrative corporate job to indulge in volunteering, was so passionate that with his focus and commitment aided by a handful of dedicated support staff was able to run such sessions as a well oiled machinery that never got stuck, as witnessed by me with my latest volunteering debut.

The process for volunteers starts with an intense orientation session followed by five sessions of 45 minutes each spread over ten days with a student allocated to every volunteer. The student allotted to me was from an economically poor background with his father a daily wager and mother doing odd domestic jobs. But the young lad doing his first year bachelor's in computer at a college, which incidentally is my alma mater too, was full of enthusiasm and discipline. He always joined the call at the agreed time, followed meticulously the curriculum so well defined by the NGO and it was a joy to find the student making progress every day , as evidenced by the completed exercises presented by him at the next session! The boy with an ambition to become a computer professional had all the making of becoming one and he confirmed with his feedback every session that he is on track and is being benefitted by my inputs. That he will raise the family above the present status was evident with the first statement making exercise given, when he responded with "I love my family" as the answer !!

What was amazing to learn later was that 750 such volunteers worked over the past two weeks to bring light into the lives of around 1000 students and when enlarged how well will such noble acts help the young ones across the country in the years to come!  The concluding reflection meet with the volunteers revealed that some long term mentor-mentee teams also blossomed due to these sessions and that augurs well for the vision of the NGO, whose passion is to encourage volunteering. 

It was a nice gesture from the volunteering organization to present the volunteers with an e-Certificate but the volunteers will cherish more the invaluable association and positive improvements in their students. 

Delighted to have spotted a long searched avenue and I only wish many more people qualified to impart such support services join hands with this team in their quest to not only catch but also coach the young and needy early so that more and more of younger generation is benefitted by the years of wisdom of the experienced ones. 

This is also an avenue for the volunteers to realize that there is more joy in giving than taking !!

Happy Volunteering !!

Empowering Elders

Months of Feb and March this year,  seem to me to be the ones of receiving blessings from elders !

Deeply moved by the sad faces of many seniors projecting their helpless travails of losing valuables over cyber space, I set out in Feb this year, to address the basic issue of operating computers and held five long sessions discussing and hand holding them with some basics. I was moved by the feedback from over 50 senior citizen participants in those sessions,  about how none cared to teach them these basics even though the ones whom they taught right from cursive writing to JEE coaching were well equipped to do this but were too busy with their own family, preparing the next generation to disappoint them in this area !! (For more details on this, read at the post: https://kapalicanvas.blogspot.com/2022/02/back-to-school-with-grand-parents.html  ) 

When they prodded me to continue with the sessions, I was only too willing to organize few classes on 'Handling email' teaching them right from creating an email account to locate the downloaded attachments, alerting about some pitfalls that they could encounter in the form of phishing and other methods used with email.

Almost the same set of elders were too happy to join and enjoyed the sessions as was evident from the fact that a majority of the 40 elders attended eagerly both the sessions and that included super seniors above the age of 75 years. I felt honoured that a friend who helped me in stepping into the computer arena, when I struggled to make the high fee back in 1982, too participated. The attendees included very senior , but now retired, professionals and the most rewarding moments were realized on getting their feedback, some of which are given below:

As was evident from the feedback, elders not only suffer from lack of updated knowledge but also has to fight other challenges like memory loss, retention etc., It's time the younger ones spend atleast some time, if not more time, with their elders and avoid their feeling lonely and being left alone in the cyber space. I wish I could contribute more to this cause. 

Back to School with Grand parents

 News reports of the spurt in cyber crimes and more importantly more of senior citizens falling victims to the lures of cyber criminals were a matter of concern and was more disturbing the mind than the other mundane news updates over tons of news reels and endless 'Breaking News'. Whenever a cyber crime occurs, it hogs the headlines for a few minutes and then everyone move on - be it media or common man. Not sure how many dwell deeper to analyze what would have happened if their own aged parents were conned ordering a dinner or medicines over online or trying to make payment for tele consultation to the doctors. The wards , lounging on the sands of Florida beach or Bondi , though concerned, find themselves helpless, and mostly do nothing more than asking them to be careful. 

Well, is that enough- will you allow your child to cross a busy road, just after advising him to be careful? Will you not go with them, walk the path going through and explaining different colors of signal lights, interpret the road sign, identify the place for the pedestrians to cross  and at times even follow them without their knowledge just to get reassured that they can be on their own ? How many of the children do the same to their aged parents in walking the digital path ? All they do is to buy a costly tablet or laptop before emplaning for their dream land , more with an intent to continue to keep connecting with them rather than expecting them to make eCommerce transactions with their new toy. Then why cry over the spilt milk when they become cyber victims when you could have spent some time to atleast brief them about the Don'ts than the Do's?

Beyond these disturbing musing and sermon , I was wondering what more I could do , unlike their wards, and help these to stay safe on the cyber shores. I did not want to stop with cautions and remembered that a hungry person will be served better to be taught a lesson on fishing which could bring a permanent solution to his travails, rather than a piece of fish to satisfy his immediate need. 

Wanting to take one step further above the statutory precautions, I connected to my senior friends and pat came the response of about 150 topics that need support , which included 'how to connect to internet',  'what is anti virus' and 'how to create safe password' !! On analyzing the responses it was clear that the seniors lack basic computer operating knowledge and it is no surprise that they were sitting ducks for cyber criminals. It is only because they confine to attending online sloka sessions over Skype and Google Meet they have not yet fallen victims and those who venture crossing that Lakshman Reka are waiting to be gobbled up by the lurking Ravanas of the cyber land!

Deciding to impart some basic computer operating skills I threw my offer far and wide through my contacts and was surprised to receive more than 100 registration for few free sessions on 'Basic Computer Operating Skills'.  90% of the registrants were senior citizens including some super seniors above 80 years and their enthusiasm to learn was infectious. Though almost all of  them were well educated , held very senior positions like General Manager and Vice President in organizations, their lack of computers could be more attributed to the late introduction of computers when they were into the higher cadres of their career, than their attitude. 

Being aware of this, I designed a simple curriculum similar to that of lower KG for these senior citizens including how to operate the mouse and where the critical keys of Ctrl, Alt and Del situated on their keyboard. I followed every session  with a set of practice exercise and being aware of their feeble memory retention, supplemented every exercise with a simple five minutes video and this, I feel, made their understanding better.

It was a pleasant surprise that each of the six session over Google meet was attended by 50+ seniors,  33 of them attended all the sessions and one senior took the class on her mobile when she was waiting at a clinic for Doctor consultation - I could not help applaud their tenacity ! I was stunned that  three 80+ people never missed a session and were prompt in completing the exercises. It was hard for me to take my eyes out of the participants attendance analysis, shared here!

And thanks to improved communication channels available people could participate from places like Vadodara, Trichy, Tanjore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mayiladuthurai, Pondicherry, Pune, Coimbatore, San Jose, Austin and Virginia with a large chunk from Chennai, despite differing time zones !!

Can we also revisit our claim that parents are too old to be computer savvy and our attempts to escape our own missed duty of educating them, as they did to us when we repeatedly tripped in our effort to walk- Time for kids away from India to think and act !

I have been imparting computer skills since 1986 to a variety of audience including very senior Government officials, Top Police officials who later retired as Director General, Senior Bank Executives , Professionals and also college students.  During this near four decades , I have never had a better satisfaction of serving and it was truly gratifying to receive grateful acknowledgements from such elders. And in their feedback, when people commented that they can now open their system more confidently, I feel my day was made ! 

Interaction with elders, in progress

As for me, this is my Magnum Opus, of my passion for teaching - of taking 70 year old seniors again back to class rooms and make them do exercise, not by force or cane, but by supporting their initiative to learn and make them smile out of glee of achieving it. My late brother who was a Math professor used to say that teaching is one of the few professions that provide ultimate satisfaction and it took me this long to understand his claim.                                                                                                              

I have also heard that there is more joy in giving rather than taking and this was the day, when I came face to face with experiencing that. Gratefully acknowledging the Goddess of Education for having provided me with an opportunity , I remain.