मिस मैं बोलू?

By Mehak Koul Ever since I could remember, I have not had a problem interacting with kids. I think it's either

the height they could relate to or maybe the mental age but either way it worked out well for me.

I remember the first time I came across the concept of volunteering and thought to myself, in a world where everything runs on the principle of give and take, why would people volunteer their time for nothing in return. Later with time I learned how giving back to society is important. This was something that my school taught me. We had a tradition to celebrate our birthdays with the kids that we used to call Apne Children and giving them little gifts or just celebrating our birthdays with them used to bring a smile on their faces and that’s when I realised that these are the things that truly matter.

Right now if someone asks me why they should volunteer their time, I don't think I would be

able to explain the feeling of giving back in words. Everyone should experience this feeling in their lives for once at least.

Before I could realise I was done with my first year of college, having absolutely no idea what

the institute looked like. Experiencing studying online closely, me and my co interns could relate to these kids and wanted to come up with something they would enjoy doing together. After brainstorming for days we finally came up with the After School Club project. I still remember how nervous all of us were for the very first session of the club. Conducting a dance class over Zoom sounded insane suddenly but it gave us immense happiness when the kids actually showed interest and ‘Miss mai bolu ?” became our favorite sentence. It may seem silly but this way we knew they were actually having a good time.

I learned the importance of life’s little things we take for granted from these children. Before

working here, I was a person who lacked patience and was always scared to put herself out there in the world. After working with them for a few days my perspective took a complete U-Turn, I became a little more understanding and my patience has surely improved! My tolerance reached levels, which was unimaginable by me a few weeks back. These six weeks of my time at Naata, I had an experience to remember for the rest of my life.