Creating Changemakers in the 21st Century
[Music]
all right before i start
uh i know what after lunch feels like
uh i would like to i’m gonna go back
don’t worry
this is just to wake the people up so uh
before
we get to the talk i’m gonna give you
some instructions
and i want you to be nice people kind
people and
follow exactly what i say is that clear
there’s something called an energizer
that we do in our
classrooms as teachers and fellows
because
after lunch most of our children have
eaten so much rice
it’s hard to teach them why two plus two
is four and not an app
right so what i’m going to tell you
right now
is you will stand up at your place when
i tell you to
i will do some gestures you’re going to
copy it
i will make a noise you’re going to copy
it
the gestures are going to repeat itself
or themselves
uh every time the
the voice goes louder the gesture goes
louder is that clear
so if my voice is really low the gesture
is really small
make sense let’s do it everyone stand up
at your place
if i see anyone sitting down i’m gonna
come to your place
personally and make you do this that’s
what we do with our kids
all right first gesture
yeah hey there is a guy who’s
constantly trying to make a joke out of
this but guess what
we will not care we’re going to do this
again
foreign
foreign
[Applause]
[Music]
m
all right no remote cool i’ll tell you
change now
am i standing at the right place yeah
good afternoon guys now that i’ve woken
you up
i’m going to be talking about things
that are comfortable
uncomfortable things that would make you
happy sad
every time you feel an emotion it’s okay
to feel it it’s okay to show it
you feel proud of something that i’ve
done clap you feel
that this is something that uh was
impossible
show it i want to see your emotions when
you bring them out
we’re going to be talking about creating
leaders
in the 21st century and not the kind of
leaders that we are talking about
in general we are going to be talking
about leaders from the lower income
communities today yeah
next but before we start
let’s look at some brilliant stories
saraswati a student from a government
school a 7th grader
goes on to the best school in hyderabad
at 120 scholarship the peace of school
annually is about 10 lakh rupees for the
next five years
how does she do it no idea let’s look at
some more stories right
ravi and pranay win the biggest talent
hunt of hyderabad
to get the award as a six-week
foreign internship both of them from are
from the same government school
god knows how this happened
a kid in the same government school
imran
identifies that the problem in the
community
a lot of it comes through the alcohol
that the fathers consume
a lot of domestic violence comes out of
it a lot of monetary issues comes out of
it
so imran says let’s fix this problem
imran
creates an anti-alcohol campaign and
conducts this across
the community and ensures that multiple
fathers
quit this habit forever
well then we have the queen who realizes
that i think there is another gap in the
community
parents are not as educated as they
should be
to understand what our needs are let’s
start parental classes over the weekends
when we are free
we will take them for the parents and
hopefully that’s why parents would
listen
crazy right all of them from a
government school
and something is common about them
let’s see what that is next
how next
ah is it me
i’ll take the credit a little later but
let’s let’s move on to the real
uh reasons why these kids have been uh
going ahead the first reason i think is
leadership
leadership uh shown by these children
at the age that they’re at from the
places that they come from
sounds impossible right the second
reason is resilience
resilience is a word that we are looking
at today and
these kids embody resilience the houses
they come from
some of them don’t have enough to eat
some of them don’t have the next uniform
even though it’s torn completely some of
them don’t have parents to go up to and
talk
some of them don’t have a the money
to reach the school so if they get 10
bucks they reach the school if they
don’t
they bunk that day a lot of these
students
embodied resilience right and the last
thing
was a secret ingredient that we are
going to be talking about today and no
it’s not me
yeah next so
the leadership that i just said uh let’s
go to that and let’s see some numbers
how many youth oh i gave you the answer
it’s okay there are 35 percent
youngsters in this country
youth people who we define as the
strength and the pillar of a country
right people say india is going to
become a superpower tomorrow
because we have people such as
yourselves to support
it as a pillar right but you know how
many young
leaders we have in the whole country out
of the total leadership positions
we have our number here 0.01 young
leaders
let me guide you to the reason why there
is a reason
why youth are not at the top of the
leadership
and the reason is the brilliant
education system
created by our favorite people
who came around 18th century and uh
created this system because they
realized that okay
i think we need to give them
some education so that they don’t think
they’re being left out but let’s not
give them too much
so that they start figuring things out
and understanding oh
where do they belong so they give us
just the right kind of education
to make us clerks and bureaucrats
if you go research today the education
system in place today remains the same
and it was introduced to bring in clerks
and bureaucrats
to fill in the gap between the people
who ruled us
and the people who are being ruled and
these are in between
just trying to fill the gap education
system
has remained the same we still do rote
learning we still learn
integration and don’t know where to
apply it we still learn volume but we
can’t figure out how much water to drink
a day
we still figure out so many things but
our rainwater still goes down to waste
we still figure out ethics but hey
we know what happens in delhi every time
right
let’s see what happens next please
the the other thing resilience uh the
four five stories that i shared
the first girl her father
runs a small dosa bundy we call it
a small cart sells dosa for a living
he does decently well but he would have
never thought of sending his daughter to
a school like that
the other two kids who won those talent
shows
one of them lost his father to drinking
while i was in the school the third kid
that we speak of
i can’t even tell you what she’s going
through right now and
resilience is their best quality right
they
make me look at my problems and make me
believe that i am a fool to believe that
my problems are bigger
next but the last ingredient
is something i called camp diaries let
me tell you something about cam diaries
before we go ahead
government conducts certain camps in the
free days where they teach you things
like yoga vedic mathematics a few extra
curricular activities and generally the
principal or the head teacher of the
school gets to choose who gets to go
can you guess the gender of the person
who gets to go generally
i i need to hear it male right
so obvious to us we’re so proud of it
that’s what happened the first time so
my girls came up to me they’re like yeah
you talk about gender equality a lot you
keep boasting about these things
that girls and boys are equal and uh it
should be amazing for both of them
but why is this happening to us why
aren’t we getting to go
i said don’t worry next time it will
happen next time the same camp happens
the girls don’t get to go again
and when i found out the reason was
their safety concerns
there were no women teacher to escort
them to the residential camp
and you can’t leave girls there because
someone would do something
that’s our india because our because of
our great education system right
so i said don’t worry if you can’t go to
the camps i’ll bring the camps to you
so this is what cam diaries does right
we do camps
for lower income schools and we teach
them
everything that they otherwise wouldn’t
get to learn or otherwise couldn’t
afford to learn
we bring dreams that are too expensive
in the real world
to their doorstep so that they can
attain them next
let’s watch it let’s watch what we do
[Music]
you can clap now it’s okay i wouldn’t
mind that
but that’s not it right that’s not the
fun part i’ll tell you what the fun part
is the first year when we were starting
this the first camp i did
there were 18 people who called me by
night and said don’t worry i’ll bring
the resources you don’t worry i’ll bring
the food
oh milan i’m going to be there i’ll
teach them this skill i’ll tease them
that skill
next morning 7 am out of 130 kids guess
how many were there
guess well zero
guess how many volunteers were there
zero so resilience had to be shown
i stood there till 10 o’clock till the
first two kids showed up
hand in hand swingling around oh wow oh
yeah you are here oh we thought you
won’t come i said i thought you won’t
come cool
now you are here now go wake up everyone
else bring them here until then i’ll go
get the volunteers
that’s how cam diaries started right we
started with a failure
but it wasn’t a failure because even in
that environment every child learned
so we gave it a good idea we said all
right let’s plan this let’s strategize
this
we said let’s give them four extra
curricular skills four co-curricular
skills stance drama art and craft
and oh what do we do forth um
yeah guitar so we said let’s do these
four skills and then let’s do public
speaking
coding brain games like rubik’s cube
chess and science experiments
let’s expose them to all eight first
because they don’t know what these
skills are
then after a weekend let’s make them
choose two extra curriculars and two
co-curriculars
then let’s make them choose one and one
then makes let’s make them choose one
and then master that until they become
independent learners so that they can
teach themselves
whenever wherever however we have jio
let’s let’s be honest yeah it’s easier
to learn things now it’s easier to
access the internet
and with that intention we started it we
wanted to impact
300 kids and that was my dream i thought
i would fulfill it and i would
feel like i’ve attained everything in
life and that’s how it started
well what’s different i i’ll run you
through it the first thing that’s
different is
we make them independent learners the
second thing that’s different is
the activities are chosen by them and
the third thing that’s different is our
curriculum in science experiment for
example we teach them vertical farming
we teach them how to generate
electricity out of a potato we teach
them how to create a rainwater
harvesting system
in uh in drama we don’t teach them just
to do a funny drama we teach them street
play
and we make them perform the street play
for a showcase in dance we make make
them
teach we teach them a contemporary piece
which could save trees tomorrow
in let us say an art and craft class
they learn how to create best out of
waste we are trying our best to teach
them things
that would make them better individuals
next
well by year one these were our
figures we had reached four cities in
year one hyderabad
bangalore m dabad and chennai we had
already impacted
thousand two thousand plus kids with
thousand plus volunteers
that wasn’t the aim we did not know how
to do this
next it came the second year so we
thought let’s cool it down let’s not
expand anymore let’s not go to any more
cities let’s understand our product well
so this is what we did we got all four
cities independent of each other
they were running all by themselves they
did not want any monitoring they did not
want any resources nothing they’ll take
care of themselves
they had over 2000 volunteers and they
had already impacted 5000 kids
so around this time i thought all right
it’s time to move on and go to next
things and i’ll tell you what the next
things were next please
our aim my aim and head was let’s do
some exponential growth right now i’m
going to throw some numbers at you and
you will not believe them
numbers are if there are 10 000
volunteers or leaders or change makers
that each work with 200 students over a
course of their lifetime
and they inspire every child to work
with 10 more students in their lifetime
they could impact two core students
unrealistic right seems like oh my god
what if what is this guy even talking
about does he understand the number
i do next slide
one day my children come up to me and
they say bhaiya
we have an idea you have been doing this
brilliant project
cam diaries and you are trying to impact
as many students as possible but
you are not reaching every child in our
community and that’s unfair
i said i know but it’s hard to reach
every child because they’re not in our
school
so they said okay don’t worry don’t
worry we have a plan they came up with a
plan called children’s cam diaries they
said we’ll run it
by the students for the students we’ll
figure out the resources
the first camp was executed in front of
me and i was told to reach there
and at the door i was given two
instruction instruction number one
may i click a lot of pictures have fun
two
do not poke your nose into our business
we understand you have been doing this
for two years but we’ll take care of it
six hours later guys 100 other
children from the lower income
communities were taught by 13 student
change makers
and it made me cry the picture you see i
was literally crying while i was bending
down because that’s how
strong i strongly i felt about this and
till date
they’ve already impacted 500 students of
their own
[Applause]
how do they do it no idea next which is
why
i have a poem for you please volunteer
next
not for the money not for the fame not
for your
personal gain not for a selfie or an
award
do it for satisfaction your only reward
do it if you dare to care do it if you
want to share
do it for there is no end to
chill do it because if you want
maybe no one else will yeah
next well let’s talk about a little
resilience from my story
i was a i was initially resilient to
become fat so i thought all right let’s
eat everything in the world
and so i grew up to be 120 kg baby
and ridiculed by everyone bullied
irritated
angry at the world i was resilient to be
a bad kid
technically then i was resilient to
learn
so then i found some inspiration and i
lost all the weight
and i became a better student then i was
resilient to do everything that was
right in life so i learned the guitar
then i learned dancing then i learned
everything possible
then i started volunteering and while i
was volunteering my parents told me okay
better be time okay now go for ims
right technically next logical step for
any it engineer
is ims and that is when things changed
for me
well i wrote cat i’ve written cat for
five years now and every year i’ve
scored 98.99 plus percentile i’ve gotten
through a lot of imps every year
but but that’s not the aim the aim
was to do something that was different
which is why
i went for teach for india fellowship
which allowed me
to be in a government school for two
years full time and make a change
on the ground understand the ground
reality and
then come back and say all right now i’m
ready to do an mv if that’s what it
needs
but well that wasn’t happening we both
know that that wasn’t my goal
so then i started a school right here in
pune well i didn’t started i teach
school started it
and i was the principal in the school
recruited every teacher trained them
responsible for government relations ngo
partnerships donor relations did
everything
in nine months and that’s when someone
found me
next come on dude
well it was one of your own people
kalyani from this very college and
you know when you do a lot of work and
when there are a lot of articles about
you
someone somewhere finds you and says
this guy
maybe he’s not the best but maybe he can
represent a data set
i was representing change makers on a
show
where she found me uh
equivalent of a real hero she took me on
mtv roadies real heroes last year
and it helped us the aim of going on the
show was finding more volunteers and
that’s exactly what happened next
we were able to increase the number of
students that we have impacted
and the number of students that we have
impacted now are
we moved to nine cities now we have over
twelve thousand volunteer applicants
and we have impacted ten thousand
students plus right last
video play it
and we are going to continue to create
that
[Music]
i
can am the world
[Music]
children
destiny does not have to define who you
are
you define who you are your life choices
define who you are
you choose if you want to be a leader
you choose if you want to be a volunteer
and if you’re choosing not to be a
volunteer it’s your choice to chill a
little bit
more it’s your choice to sleep a little
bit more it’s your choice to not
change the chaos that’s going on in this
country
every day while you don’t know about it
and when you know about it as well
you choose to do something so be a smart
person
and choose something better because
everything that i did made me a better
leader
if you join volunteering there’s a
chance you will become a better leader
but the bigger chances you will create
some leaders
and they will make the change for you
eventually and then you can retire
and here i am retiring thank you guys