Unlearning
Contributed by: Promod Yadav
“A small body of determined spirits fired by unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history- Mahatma Gandhi”
These lines by Mahatma Gandhi always inspired me during my journey in development sector, always felt that every single step I am taking in this very journey where we as social worker contribute and create an impact on the lives of others on another side it contribute immensely in one’s own life. Entering in to a development sector, a person need to be passionate enough to work for the cause. Every human has this tendency of getting a sense of comfort and peace when they get to help someone, therefore in this journey we gather some moment of happiness every day.
If I need to look into my own career as social worker, it all started with lots of field work, direct connection with the community and slowly moving up the ladder more focus and time went on managing and implementing the program devised for the benefit of the beneficiaries. I was initially motivated by the thought that now part of teams where I am impacting a larger community. But, over the period of time, somewhere it started becoming more like regular jobs, where you need to sit for fix hours of working and then slowly started feeling less motivated, the happiness of seeing those happy faces were missing. During these days I shifted my focus on looking for internal tranquility and understanding more about inner happiness. On internal peace a person need to work by themselves and external factors need to be aligned accordingly. In this process of connecting the dots realized that I need to unburden myself and a lots of unlearning and relearning process is required, so one thing which was always very close to me and I was passionate about was Sports, some of the core principles of life I learned at basketball and volleyball court. Being born in Uttar Pradesh but never stayed much and this thing was continuously coming in my conscience to serve somewhere closer to my birthplace.
This was the point where Project KHEL came into my life, where magic through power of play was happening. All the ingredients for which I was searching were available: Life Skills through Sports, Lucknow and ultimately a big smile on children’s faces. It’s been a month since I joined Project KHEL, till now I gained back the passion for which I started into development sector, I started playing again or if rephrasing it well, started to see magic happening through Power of Play. Lots of unlearning and relearning happened during this one month, being a student of Life Skills education for two years during post-graduation and coming to an organization whose name itself contains Life Skills in it (Project KHEL (Kids Holistic Education and Life Skills) brought me lots of curiosity about the way life skills is being served to the children. It gives me immense happiness to see the efforts being taken to put theories into work and minutely working on every single elements to maximize the learning for children. From planning to delivery to re-evaluating the sessions, the effect of all the efforts are visible in the smile of children with whom Project KHEL is working.