Help Us Help Out Parijat Academy!
Hello there!
We are Katrina Crankshaw and Lee Anne Steers and we are currently Sophomores at Florida State University. We have connected with The Omprakash Foundation and have been offered an intern position at the Parijat Academy in Assam, India, during the summer of 2013.
Parijat Academy is a school for underprivileged children in Pamohi village near Guwahati, Assam. The Parijat Academy is a place of refuge and opportunity for children of low-income families. It was founded in 2003 by Uttam Teron. It is a non religious and non profit school that provides free and equal education, and encourages students to develop positive qualities.
We will be filling the roles of teaching assistants and will be helping to teach children in Guwahati computer literacy. This will allow them to learn virtually anything they want, open doors to greater opportunities, and build their confidence by learning to send emails and communicate with children and family members in other parts of the world. We will also be teaching photography, which will empower students with documentary photography skills, and with the opportunity to share their perspectives with each other and with people around the world. In addition we will be developing their english skills and helping the teachers with lesson plans.
We both have a passion for helping people and we have dreamed about volunteering abroad and getting involved with non-profit organizations for a while so we are very excited to make this happen. However, since we are college students after all, we need some help funding our journey.
When we were researching placement options, it was really important to us that we went to a place that would allow us to live like the locals did, where we could take part in their lifestyle and understand exactly what the families and students are going through. Neither of us are interested in "voluntourism" or traveling abroad the way that most college students do. We want to completely immerse ourselves in the culture. It was really important that we gave our energy to a place that really needed it, a place that seemed overlooked; the Parijat Academy seemed like the right place for us. We will live in the guest room of the Parijat Academy for 10 weeks, just like the young students who leave their families to stay in the hostel do. We feel that we have so much to gain from this experience. Just being in a place so far from what we consider our "norm" would give us a whole new perspective and the relationships we form will without a doubt change our lives.
In addition to our volunteer work we have created a side project that we would like to work on during our free time. Our project has many aspects and is still in the planning stages but it focuses on our own "social research" and art in addition to the volunteer work. We will use music, photography, and community art to capture our experience and spread the positive qualities that the Parijat Academy encourages. We want to use music and art as a way to relate to people and unite a community while learning about the culture of India. Art is our own little way of doing something good for the world and we feel that this experience would be so inspiring to us as well as the children we meet. One thing we are very interested in doing is making a documentary of our time volunteering in India. We hope to raise and save enough money to purchase some camera equipment. In our documentary we want to capture the feel for everyday life for these children in India, and also focus on all of the staff at Parijat and learn their story. Everyone who helps us make this trip possible will absolutely receive credit in our documentary.
We are eager to devote our time and energy to something that would benefit others as much as it would ourselves and we are really just eager to learn from this experience.
To make this journey happen, we need to raise about $3,500 each to cover airfare, fees, and food for 10 weeks. Any extra money that is donated will go to the Parijat Academy, who is in need of furniture, funds to pay salaries to the teachers, school uniforms, textbooks and bags, medical check- ups, and treatment for kids suffering from various diseases.
Honestly any donation, no matter the size means the world to us. We understand that money is tight for a lot of people and it seems like we're asking for a lot, but donations in other forms are equally as helpful! If you have any old electronics, toys, clothes, school supplies, or things the students might enjoy, we would love for you to donate them to the kids and the Academy! Fundraising ideas and travel advice as well as prayers are also wonderfully helpful! We are so thankful to everyone who supports us and who help us fund our trip. We really appreciate your support!
You can email either of us with questions or donation coordinations if you have items to donate! Reach Katrina at [email redacted].edu and Lee Anne at [email redacted].edu.
Here is the Parijat Academy's website, for those who are interested!
Much love,
Katrina and Lee Anne
