13 retired men teach Mumbai a lesson

If you thought that life of a retired man is a walk in the NanaNani park think again Thirteen senior citizens from Santacruz are making each week of their postretirement leisure count as they visit BMC schools to impart lessons in Computers and English to their studentsu00a0 Having made their presence felt at three schools in their neighbourhood so far they are now eager to spread the light of knowledge to more schools across the city Whatrsquos more they donrsquot charge a penny for their valuable services Inspiring The elderly teachers at a computer class in Tank Lane municipal school PicSayed Sameer Abedi Students of Tank Lane Municipal School in Santacruz West are enjoying their Computer and English lessons these days which are conducted in twohour session every school day Making their time count Shailesh Gandhi Narendra Madan and Rajiv Mehta teach students computer at Tank Lane Municipal School in Santacruz Each session is two hours long PicsSayed Sameer Abedi Satish Sutaria a volunteer said ldquoThe children are very enthusiastic about the sessions and so am I I work as a freelancer these days but I am also a teacher to these kids I make it a point to avoid any assignments on the day that I have to conduct a sessionrdquo Former RTI commissioner and volunteer Shailesh Gandhi said ldquoThe government is undoubtedly flawed but what are the citizens doing on their part to bring about change The morchas wonrsquot bring about change in the system but the common man can with a little effortrdquo The volunteers now want their programme to be replicated by other organisations So far they have been conducting the sessions in Petit Municipal School Hasnabaad Municipal School and Tank Lane Municipal School The schools had been given computers several years ago However the machines were gathering dust because the number of students in each school far outnumbered the number of PCs provided by the authorities To solve this conundrum the classes were divided into batches of two but the teachers could not attend to both batches at the same time The computers lay unused and the students remained computerilliterate still these13 saviours came to their rescue and took on the responsibility of giving the lessons ldquoThe use of computers is very important and without this knowledge the students will be absolutely lost The children will now be able to face the challenges that technology throws up in future Technology is a very important part of life I observed was these students are very sharp and pick up things very quickly Since they have access to the machinery why should they be deprived of the knowhowrdquo said Narendra Madan a volunteer and IIT Delhi graduate While these 13 enlightened souls have set the ball rolling they have to spread themselves thin owing to lack of volunteers ldquoWe thought we would have enough volunteers willing to spend two hours in a week to teach these students but sadly that is not the case There are many housewives who are qualified but do not work we thought they would be willing to work with us but no such thing happened We want to extend this programme to as many schools as possible but we cannot as we donrsquot have enough volunteersrdquo said a member of the group Want to help Those interested in volunteering for this programme can contact Shailesh Gandhi at 8976240798 and shaileshgangmailcom Nitin Wadhwani at 9821112418 nitin_29wyahoocom u00a0