Published

Here is the article that I am about to see published in a Bristol newspaper (subtext: I can't be bothered to write a new entry today).
Too often global poverty is presented as a series of numbers and statistics, the human aspect is lost and it makes it all too easy to live in western comfort ignoring the countless plights from across the world. I am one of the lucky few to have been given the opportunity to help these people in need and in a country that, despite its myriad of problems, is one of the most spectacular and fascinating locations on the planet. And the government paid for it all as well.
With Christian Aid, the Department for International Development runs Platform2, a £10 million project dedicated not only to the development of some of the poorest areas globally, but also to giving disadvantaged youths a new perspective on life, and the purpose that comes with it. In October of last year, I was selected, along with 39 other volunteers, to join the January to March trip to Rajasthan in India, for a project that involved teaching and construction in the poor villages surrounding the city of Jaisalmer, near the Pakistan border.

My experience was incredible. It completely altered my perspective on the world and redefined my goals in life to be focused around somehow aiding the developing world. The teaching project I was working on primarily allowed me to witness the struggle of children from horrendously poor families against an unsympathetic and ineffective education system, entrenched by unsympathetic and ineffective teachers. In an effort to increase the number of children attending school, the government had begun an initiative that offered a free meal to all attending students. However, like with all schemes in any country that are not properly monitored and enforced, the holes in the scheme were all too obvious. Many children would turn up for school in the morning, stay for the register, and as soon as it was possible, they would escape the class to play in the day care centre, or roam the desert around the village. These children would return for lunch, where they would be fed, before disappearing again for the rest of the day. Trying to convey to their parents the importance of school reaped little rewards as they, too, saw it as a means of feeding their children one good meal a day that they were not paying for. Teachers were even less help, but how can you expect any level of effective interest in their responsibilities when there is no concept of accountability in the role. This lack of accountability stretched further upward than the teachers, we were lucky enough to be working at the school at the time of local elections, and therefore able to catch a glimpse of a disregard for the non-voting children of India by the very people who are supposed to be working for the benefit of everyone in their area.

Firstly, we witnessed the methods by which political parties obtained votes. Instead of canvassing and manifestos, the candidates and their staff travelled around the villages distributing alcohol to their supporters and the undecided. It became clear very quickly that it would not be policies that would determine the winner, but rather who would supply the most booze. It seemed we were right about this and after the weekend we were faced with the devastating conclusion to the weeklong event when we were finally able to get back to the school. Dotted around the schoolyard were bottles of rum and whisky, discarded by the revellers from an election night party. Given the unkempt state the playground was consistently in, this was not particularly eye catching or shocking, but once we entered our staff room we were presented with a sight, and smell that should not have been expected in even the most apathetic of schools. Various glass bottles were smashed on the floor, their contents long consumed. Cigarettes and bidis (Indian cigarettes rolled in leaves) were piled high on the window sills where children had been grabbing at the piles through holes in the mesh. The worst, and most pungent find in that abandoned mess were the two heaps of exercise books in the corners of the room. One of which was almost unrecognisable, a black lump of burnt pages and ash where responsibly adults had used the fuel of student’s hard work in an effort to light and heat the room as they celebrated into the night. Of the other, it was the smell that called the most attention to it. Without the fire of the other mound, you could still make out the sums and sentences scrawled on the pages of the books, but they were swimming in urine. In an attempt to create a toilet that was closer than the one around the corner, elected officials had opted to use educational resources that would probably not get replenished during the time that these children would remain in school. In that room, the lack of accountability and its effects were demonstrated across a broad spectrum of those responsible for our student’s futures. Futures which looked bleak. Bleaker still for the child that was called in and forced to clean up the mess.

Examples such as that one as well as the abhorrent violence that the children faced at the hands of their impatient teachers, exemplify the difficulties they had of getting what they were entitled to from their education. Regardless, some of those children were the most upbeat and enthusiastic people I had ever met and the effect of having teachers that did not hit them and turned up every day turned my class from one of nine students on the first day, to an almost unmanageable thirty-five to forty in the last few weeks. The trip taught me that material wealth and western values can sometimes be extremely detrimental to the happiness of those who are used to them while people who truly deserve such luxuries are left in starvation and poverty thanks to a global apathy that is stifling world-wide progression. My hope is that my fellow volunteers and I can continue to make a real difference to this situation, inspiring others to do the same. It is our responsibility as human beings to fix the inexcusable condition of the poorest countries and its embarrassing that so many people ignore this.