Hello, I am Carla from Germany and I am 19 Years old.Since six month now I am doing Voluntary Service for FSL India in Bengaluru (Karnataka).

I am working with children who are living in the poorest regions and under the hardest conditions of the city in the slums for the NGO Need Base India. During the week I am working as an English assistant teacher, teaching 20-30 children in the Bridge School Chokkasandra. Everyday is a challenge for me, as I don’t know how much and whom of the children are coming. So I am happy for every child, who is joining our school program.   We are doing the alphabet, numbers, easy English words like the names of the weekdays and month. I am also teaching easy maths.  Most of the time my work is joyful. After teaching the children now for half a year I can see their individual learning progresses. That makes me proud and gives me a good feeling of doing useful work.Well, let me give you a glimpse into my daily routine of a working day at Bridge School Chokkasandra: Before me and my colleagues can start our daily teaching at around 10 o’clock in the morning, we have to pick up the children at home. I guess you can imagine that we want the children to feel good at school, to have fun and to be interested in the lessons. Therefore, it is important that they come to school voluntarily and in a joyful mood. Those are good conditions for successful and long-term learning.  For that reasons we try to create a bond between the children and the school to make them come regularly and for a long time. For the kids motivation it is of great value to pump up the learning units with English games and songs. For that reason I sing and dance with the kids in the project’s free time, e.g. songs about body parts, numbers.

At the beginning of my voluntary time the school lessons could only take place in the entrance of the building on the floor. We had no furniture, the children sat on the floor. They were copying into their books. I had no opportunity and no room to play games and sing with all of the children. At the end of a long searching, my contact person finally found a room nearby the school for me and my colleagues where I have the opportunity to hang up posters and drawings and have more place to do oral lessons besides the normal writing exercises.

And now, everyday at the end of the study lessons, it is time for my free dance class! I and the children dance to German and English music – the reason I brought my speaker with me. 😉 It makes me very happy when the children try to sing along to my favorite German and English songs. At first it was difficult for me to find my one place, my position, in the project. Getting into contact with the children was a great challenge at the beginning, too. Motivating the kids for learning was the next one and of course, the language barrier because English is hardly spoken by the kids of the poorest areas in the city. So I started to learn the local language – Kannada. After realizing that I only need a few words of the children’s mother tongue Kannada together with my hands and a little bit of body talk, I started to be able to be teacher and friend to the children.  In the meantime I feel like a part of Bridge School Chokkasandra project – and I am proud and glad about that development which means a lot to me! Now the kids ask me almost every morning personal things. They want to know what I had for breakfast, ask things about my family, want to know what it is like where I come from and are interested in my daily mood. They ask in English and I try to answer in Kannada – to the students and staff – what a great conversation!