The Hindu Business Line : Jeans aunties and uncles

When the Bangalore-based Texas Instruments (TI) set up the TI Foundation and circulated an internal mail asking for volunteers to work in a few slum schools and other projects it planned to support, "12 of our 1,400 employees immediately registered. Their average age was 26; later we got more and 150 people have signed up", says Sylvia Subbaiah, Management Aide, Leader, TI Foundation.

Every Saturday about 8 to 10 of these volunteers spend time at two Tamil and two Urdu Balwadis run by Akshara, started by Rohini Nilekani, wife of Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani. Come Saturday the `Jeans aunties and uncles' as they are lovingly called by the Balwadi children are there.

"It's not easy for them; they live in posh areas, work in air-conditioned offices, and have to walk through slush and overflowing drains to access the Balwadis in the slums. They park their cars/bikes a little away and walk the distance," says Sylvia.

"Akshara children know each of them by their name and look forward to their visits. Even though the `class' begins only at 10 a.m., they know we'll be there and wait for us at the school door right from 8 a.m.," she says. The volunteers spend 4 to 5 hours with the kids, reading stories to them in Tamil or Urdu, teaching them English, a few games and helping them brush up their mother tongue.

Sylvia has a core team of 40 people who plan and execute the various projects TI supports - Akshara Balwadis, an old-age home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, blood donation camps, quiz, fund raisers etc.

So what motivates these youngsters, who could otherwise be out partying, or seeing a movie or eating out on a Saturday, to give time to poor kids?

"I suppose it is personal satisfaction. I myself hold two jobs, supporting the TI MD with his work and this role; I can't express in words what the community work means to me," says Sylvia, adding, "You're right, they could be out in the movie halls or the malls, but this is what they want to do and are very dedicated. It is easy to give money but so much more difficult to give time."

Some of her volunteers are married and have children. Her first fear when a volunteer got married or became a parent was whether he/she would be able to spare time for the Foundation work. "But they're still there," she says.

Akshara has a set syllabus for the children that these volunteers can't change but they can add to it, by organising singing competitions, reading out stories, etc. The youngest children come with feeding bottles to the Balwadi. It is quite a task to get these children into the schools, says Sylvia. "These are some of the poorest areas in Bangalore, and parents think it's no use to send them to school, because they could work and generate some income for the family. `Why should we send them, what is the benefit?' they ask."

Most families have 3-5 children, sometimes from two wives, and it is "extremely difficult to convince the parents to send the girl children to school. For this we have to talk to the father, mother, uncle, grandfather, the whole family, but our volunteers did it."

Akshara works with the leader in charge of that locality and convinces him of the benefits before the parents relent, she says. Each Balwadi has 20 children and the exercise — sometimes for a year, sometimes more — is to prepare them for regular school. "But there is no real interest to continue education after that. Parents think: `Okay he's done one or two years of this and that's enough. So let's get him/her into a job'."

But this year Sylvia's volunteers worked with the parents and convinced them that the children would have a better future if they went into a full-fledged school. After that they approached two upmarket schools in Bangalore — the New Horizon School, an ICSE school and the Presidency School — and convinced the principal to take in these children. "Normally they won't take these children; they can't pay the fees and adjust to these schools, and there's no guarantee they'd continue."

A better future

This June, five lucky children — three boys and two girls — have been admitted to these schools with the TI Foundation picking up the annual fee tab of Rs 10,000 plus cost of books, uniform, bags, shoes. The children who used to sit on the floor in a school — basically the teacher's home in the slum — with no blackboard, toilet etc, have adjusted very well in the upmarket schools.

Sylvia says the volunteers had to work harder with the parents — most of them casual labourers with a daily wage of Rs 50-100 — than the principals, because "it's very easy for them if we say we'll take care of everything. We said we'll pay the fees, but if he/she doesn't pass or get good marks, we won't sponsor the child to the next class. So the onus is on the parents. At first they protested and cried, but the volunteers said at the end of the exercise the smile on their faces said that tomorrow my child will be a doctor or an engineer and see a much better life than I did."

Children's dreams

So what are the dreams of these children?

The TI volunteers show them pictures of doctors, engineers, astronauts, etc and say that `if you study well one day you'll be treating people, or flying a plane.' But all the children have one dream... to find good work and earn money. "They are not sure what they want to become; what they're sure about is that they want to earn money, come out of the slum and see their parents happy," she says.

The TI Foundation is not yet working in the villages; "we will expand gradually as we have to sustain our projects. We have our regular jobs to do and these are high-pressure jobs. The engineers have difficult deadlines to meet but despite this they give time to the community, that's a big contribution."

The volunteers also organise a few programmes in a school for visually challenged children; the foundation's total budget for community work and an annual quiz is Rs 25 lakh.

Old age homes

Fun time at the old age home.

While giving the children a better future is a noble goal indeed, these youngsters are also making a difference to the lives of the elderly; inmates of the old-age home run in Bangalore by the Little Sisters of the Poor. All the 200-plus inmates of this home have been abandoned by their own children.

"There is a couple there with two sons working as engineers in good jobs in the US. They don't come to visit them, send no money for the parents and don't even want to know how they are because one of them has a heart problem and the other one is a diabetic," explains Sylvia.

Two other inmates, a couple, were duped by their only child — a daughter — who tricked the father into transferring his property to her name and one fine night put them out on the streets. "The tragic thing is that many of them are from very well-to-do families, they have no savings, have given everything away to the children and are now destitute. That touches your heart, makes you wonder is this in store for us?" says Sylvia.

The toughest thing to take for the volunteers is that every few visits they find somebody missing. Such as the 97-year-old man, who won't be around this Christmas to play Santa Claus, as he had done at every Christmas party. "It breaks your heart, but also gives you a lot of courage, energy, and teaches you to understand life, accept it and move on."

The TI volunteers always carry gifts and their favourite food — samosas are a big hit here — "but we also know that what they really want is not your gift or your food... but your time and your presence. They wait for us to sit and talk to them. The younger people remind them of their children. They hug and kiss them and these kids are amazing too," she adds.

The nuns look after the inmates very well and collect the ration for them going from home to home, and TI picks up the monthly tabs for coffee, tea, sugar, rice, dhal as well as some medicines. Most of the inmates want to be useful to the Home and do chores like going to the post office, tending the garden, and other things they enjoy. "But old people can be very difficult to handle and lots of them have depression; when we go there they open out their hearts to us," she says, admitting that it takes a lot of emotional input to do this kind of work. "I like doing community work but it took me a while to get used to this aspect."

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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