Ananya Saluja, a class 11th student, spends her hard-earned post-exam holidays teaching underprivileged children in Jammu and Kashmir‘s Leh district.
During the two-month volunteering program, Ananya believes she was the one who learnt more than the children she was teaching. She learnt about how the people live their lives and the challenges they have to face on a daily basis.
“To us, a tablet is an everyday object. But to these children who rarely see a computer, a tablet is a little magic screen working without any cord! It took me some time to get comfortable with the children, since our cultures, environment and the level of exposure to the outer world were completely different. But once we got past that initial unfamiliarity, we found a very special connection beyond all these differences. After returning, I realised that there was a strong bond between us that kept tugging at me,” Ananya said.
How it all started
Ananya, a student of The Shri Ram School in Haryana’s Moulsari region in Gurugram, has spent her last three summer breaks in Leh. Apart from teaching, she has raised more than Rs 10 lakh to build playgrounds and start libraries in the area.
It all started two years ago when Ananya’s school included a community service program in its curriculum, which prescribed that students should teach underprivileged children. The program eventually ended, but Ananya decided she would continue with her community service even though the curriculum didn’t require it anymore.
The experience was an eye-opener for the teenager. “It was transforming and enriching,” she said.
“During the time of the program, I really got close to my girls (I was teaching in Leh). The happiness on their faces after having understood a concept was worth anything in the world. I just knew that I didn’t want to stop at that,” she added.
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How Ananya decided on Leh
Ananya said that while in conversations with her friends at school, she heard about the 17000 ft Foundation run by Sujata Sahu, a former school teacher and also the mother of one of her classmates. “After approaching the Foundation for volunteering opportunities, I decided to go to Ladakh,” Ananya recalled.
For Ananya, visiting and educating remote villages in Leh and Ladakh has now become a summer ritual.
In 2015, she visited Leh district’s Liktsey, Turtuk and Tialing, to teach children. And the summer of 2016 took her to another village Matho in Leh, where she also contributed to set up a playground for children, apart from teaching. This summer, she will be travelling to Kargil to set up a library and conduct a workshop.
Raising Money
The regions Ananya has worked in have over 600 hamlets and 1,000 government schools, which have limited facilities and manpower. Visiting these schools left Ananya wanting to do something more than just a once-in-a-year volunteering program. That’s when she decided to resort to crowdfunding to help raise the funds for the children.
“I had seen the incredible work the NGO was doing and since I couldn’t give my time more than a few weeks every year, I decided to help in other ways that I could. I decided to help them raise money to expand their reach beyond Leh district and set up libraries in the Kargil district of Ladakh,” she said.
“I have managed to raise funds for 19 libraries so far. This is an ongoing effort and I hope to raise as much money as I can for my kids in Kashmir,” the excited teenager adds.