Program participants: Krishna, Rajesh, Damodar, Sai Krishna, Murali, Vidhyadhar, Vinayak, Jayaprakash, Somashekar, Saritha, Shubha, Mridula, Gurunath, Sanjay, Krishna, Shreenidhi
The trip schedule and agenda for the Kudur Rural Reach Program was well planned and informed to all the parties by E & R department.
Then it all started on cool Saturday morning (22-July-05). The Bus took off from Infy Campus with all the computers, books, pens required for the program loaded in its booty. Bus left the campus at around 7:30am with everyone getting a missed call. It followed the route from INFY CAMPUS ->Raghavendra Math->Silk board->Devegowda petrol bunk Banashankari bus stop-> Vijaynagar Main Rd->Jalahalli cross, stopping only to pick up the E&R executives. Jalahalli cross was the last stop for the pickup and then we stopped only once on the city outskirts of city for having Break fast.
Break fast was packed Idli, vadas from Adiga’s supplemented with gulkan ban. Breakfast tasted really good, Somehow I have always found that Idlis taste yummy when we are on trip and Gulkan bun was really excellent. After breakfast everybody had a gulp of water and we started of on our onward journey to Kudur grama 60 kms aways from Bangalore.
The journery to Kudur itself was fun filled; it started of with everybody giving 2 mins introduction about themselves. We were all around 16 in number. Rajesh entertained the crowd with his good old kananda songs, jana padha geetaygalu, Murali and everybody joined with their bit of talent in singing. All this while the bus was on the move and either side one could treat their eyes with the green trees, the black/brown mountains, the well cultivated lands, and some cultivated lands still dry and waiting on monsoon rains to quench it with water. The fresh air was blowing on our faces and the air was so fresh filled with aroma of country side, I guess Murali also joked about the air being so fresh that is not good for our health. On our we also saw a mountain engulfed in clouds which almost resembled like a volcano J this was one of the most captivating sights.
We reached Kudur grama round 11:00pm. It was a small, sweet and quite village away from hustle, bustle of the City. The main source of income seemed to come from handlooms and agriculture. The Government Middle school had around 300+ kids. As soon we reached the school we were allocated 4 rooms for the Rural Reach program. We set up one room for introductory presentation and other 3 rooms for setting up 10 computers for practical session.
For introductory presentation all the village heads, school heads, school teachers & around 100 schools were present. It started with Head Master’s welcome address, followed by a prayer from a school teacher. Then Vinayak from Infosys Team provided brief explanation about the objective of the Rural Reach Program.
“Rural reach programme is a one day programme to students of classes 5, 6 and 7 in rural area schools delivering the very basics and needs of computer and give them practical hands on session on computers. The students are given a day to see, touch and explore a computer and its peripheral. This program only sows the seed and it is responsibility of the school officials to take care and grow it into a big computer”
The 300+ kids were divided into 3 batches and each batch were given a presentation in Kannada about the computer, its components, working, uses and step to gain more knowledge. Looking at the enthusiast children listening and questioning was a treat to eyes and ears. Answering there simple basic curious question was really fun to the Presenters. Kids enjoyed the show and most of them volunteered to read the contents from the PPT.
After the presentation the kids were divided into batches of 7 each for the practical session. In the practical session we showed the different parts of computer, most of them were keen and curious to touch different computer parts. They were shown how to use Word, Excel, calculator and Paint. And as usual MS-Paint was successful in captivating their attention.
At round 2pm we came to the end of our programme and kids ran away to grab their share of sweets. Kids were also given Notebook, Pen and a book on computers written by Sudha Murthy and then it was lunch time for kids bringing to an end a memorable day for the kids. I am sure in the coming days most of them would be talking about computers and at least 50% would be inspired to know more computers and thus achieving objective of the RRP.
We then started packing/loading the computers back into the bus. Then started the group photo sessions followed by lunch organized by school officials. For lunch we were served with Puliyogare, Avalakki masaru, Rice and huli which all tasted extra fabulous and satisfied our hunger.
We then had a walk towards a Tender coconut groove. Here we were introduced to tastiest fresh tender coconuts; we all dived upon the coconut like hungry bees starved for the nectar, sucking the sweet liquid to quench our thirst. It never ceases to amaze me of how the coconut tree manages to convert our polluted water into such a holy life saving liquid. After empty nearly 2 dozen coconuts we traced back to the school, on the way spent few mins playing cuckoo with kids, the kids were very enthusiastic in showing of their talents in front of us (aliens). That was end of our stint at Kudur, we then boarded the bus eagerly for our return journey back to our Big Bang hustle bustle Bangalore.
On the way back in the bus, we were again entertained by Dance from Rajesh & Krishna. Rajesh turned out to be real crowd entertainer bringing waves of laughter from the crowd. It had started raining by then; the village side looked greener than never before. The cool breeze mixed with rain droplet blew fresh on our faces. The aroma from breeze was a welcome relief to our tired lungs. It was still raining when we reached Bangalore around 6:00pm.
This brings to the end of the most memorable trip and the Kudur Rural Reach Program
1 comment:
Inspiring ! :)
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