Staying abroad, many miles away from homeland, one can’t deny the extra effort that people take to remember and connect to their roots. Youngsters Deepika Sundarraman and Hema Chennu who’ve returned to Hyderabad after spending several years of their life studying in the US, have gone a step beyond to usher change in their immediate surroundings.
The two being Teach For India fellows are now teaching adolescents in the city.
Deepika, 24, a student of College of Wooster, firmly believes that education is a powerful instrument to alter human lives and resolve crises, many a time. She says, “My experiences of American education and spending time at various universities in Germany largely shaped my worldview. I realised that my love for teaching and research would eventually lead me to an academic career.”
But the yearning to give back to the homeland was making her think at depth about it. “Through a sense of frustration, being distant from ground level issues in society, I was overpowered by a strong desire to share my learning from across the globe. The decision to apply for the Teach For India Fellowship in 2015 was born out of an urge to discover the educational landscape at its grass roots level in our country.”
With each passing day, Deepika wakes up with gratitude to the curious students she teaches and for the learning experiences they create. “I cannot think of a better time to have done the fellowship, since my learning through this has been life-changing and enabled me to grow into a better person and campaign for social change for the rest of my life.”
Meanwhile though Hema Chennu, 22, a UNC Chapel Hill passout, aged 22, has always believed that education can be a solution for many societal issues, but wasn’t sure if it would happen through a fellowship. For her, social change and giving back to society were just a matter of attitude. She reveals, “Giving back to society in itself is the purpose. Why do we have a purpose in giving? We are never too young or too old for anything. We are ready whenever we think we are. And we see the change only when we become one.” And the fact that they are sowing the seed for social change, you inevitably remember the popular lines of Gurazada Appa Rao, “ Desmante matti kadoi, desamante manushuloi .” (The country is not about soil, it’s about the people)
