A 16-year-old started teaching underprivileged girls and boys as part of a school project in 2016.
What started as a short stint became her life and soul and the teenager would visit the slum every Sunday teaching children maths and English and helping them in their personality development.
Like many projects, this, too, had to stop during the Covid pandemic. Classes remained suspended beyond two years in that part of Narkeldanga.
But Aqsaa Nasir, now 23, felt a vacuum and she went back to the slum and requested the organisation she had volunteered for to restart the classes.
Aqsaa in the middle of her class
Aqsaa is back to teaching the kids, again, every Sunday, since May 2023.
The engineer and MBA aspirant does all this for free.
“I come from a privileged family but I live in an area which is close to where many underprivileged children live. When I went to where they live and started interacting with them, it was a reality check for me,” said Aqsaa.
“I understood what poverty is and what not having enough of something
means. As a teenager, I never had seen a rough phase and so far enjoyed all the privileges. But interacting with them made me realise life is not like that for everybody,” said Aqsaa.
She was introduced to the NGO CRY (Child Rights and You), which was running the centre, by a friend.
“Initially, I had thought I would do so for one sea-son... but I stayed on,” Aqsaa said.
The pandemic had threatened to turn it all upside down for the children and for Aqsaa. She lost her grandmother, something that emotionally impacted her from within, she said.
She tried doing online classes with the children but that did not work. She would visit the slum, but to distribute dry food and ration.
“But that was not a regular thing. I was missing the classes and my interaction with the children. At home, I lost interest in many things. I used to be very low,” she said.
In 2023, she returned to the slum and then to CRY with the request to help her restart those classes, every Sunday morning.
“I was busy with my studies and I was doing all that I had to do. But I was missing the fun in my life. I got that back when I resumed taking classes (in the Narkeldanga slum). I went there not for them (the children), but for myself and the satisfaction it gives me to spend time with them,” she said.
Officials at CRY said the organisation relies on the voluntary service of young people who conduct many of these classes.
“Some of them are promising and they engage with the children very well. It is a voluntary service and girls like Aqsaa become our role models. Some of the girls in the area who have grown up help Aqsaa,” said Saptarshi Hazra, senior manager, policy and engagement, CRY.
Despite being familiar with the place and the people, Aqsaa has had to face roadblocks.
“Their parents are often resistant to their children studying. They would rather send them to work during that time. But many children are intelligent and I try to convince the parents by telling them that they have the potential to do much more than just work as a daily wage earner,” said Aqsaa.