MY RECENT TRIP TO PUNE AND MUMBAI

By Kumari (SANGAMAM PROJECT ASHA CHENNAI )

Pune:

Nathiya and I went to Pune with Rajaraman Sir by flight on the 20th Feb. For me, that was the first trip by flight. I was excited to fly. Finally, we entered the flight and Nathiya took the window seat. The flight took off. Nathiya was nervous to look outside the window so we exchanged seats. We reached Pune at 5.30.pm and went to Hotel O.

The hotel has Luxury rooms. They provided different types of breakfast and lunch. We didn’t know the names of most dishes but Rajaraman sir explained the items and he taught us how to eat the items with the side dishes.
On the 21st of Feb, when we entered the training hall also located in the same Hotel O, there were three mentors Nicole, Martina, and Doyeon from code.org. They taught code.org lessons well. They conducted some activities like Bingo to make groups and shared thoughts with a small group. Their English was a little difficult to understand. Rajaraman sir explained us the concepts in Tamil and in a way we could understand.

I spoke with Martina ma’am and told her, “You were teaching well but it is a bit difficult for me to understand”. I realized that their English accent is difficult to understand. Nathiya and I participated with the group and shared our thoughts when conducting unplugged activities. They taught us how to create a section to see the students’ work. It was very useful to see all the students’ work in the code.org course by sections. Every organization put up a booth to show their work. We had brought photos showing our work and put up our booth. We also showed work done by our RTC students in our booth. Other NGO teachers appreciated it a lot. So Rajaraman sir asked us to give the link in pdf to view our students’ projects to all.

All the three days that we were there, we went to a different hotel for dinner (Pizza, Sandwich, Chola batura).

On 23rd Feb, we visited a student’s project (Hackathon) organized by Amazon. The students made those projects using Make Block software with sensors. This app is similar to Scratch. I think our RTC students are much better at those projects. After lunch we visited a museum (Aga Khan palace where Gandhiji was imprisoned during Quit India movement) in Pune. We reached Mumbai on the 23rd evening by train. Rajaram Sir, Nathiya and I had a nice chat during our journey.

Mumbai:

We stayed in one apartment above Smithaji’s (Mumbai coordinator) house.

24th Feb morning we met some of our Asha Volunteers and coordinators (Siva, Dhinakaran, Akilan, Ali, Ajay, and Sriram sir) in the Mumbai conference hall. All the project coordinatiors explained about their work one by one. Here we faced a language problem again. Most of them explained their project work in Hindi or Marathi. So Abhishek sir translated it into English for our benefit.

On 25th Feb, Ram Punniyani (Smitha ji’s husband) sir gave a speech about religion and the current Hindu-Muslim issues.

Then our coordinator Rajaraman sir explained about Asha’s work. Asha Mumbai coordinator was impressed with our work and she suggested that all the other chapters should consider projects to implement our curriculum. She requested Rajaraman sir to see the students’ projects. So he told us to visit the lab. Nathiya, Ali, Ajay and I visited the computer lab. We taught some unplugged activities like Grid games, Card games (Parity checking, Conditional games), Cup games, and Magic cards to the Mumbai teachers. They learned those activities and had good fun. Finally, some digital literacy students presented their projects. We gave some tips to make their presentation better. One pair of students presented their Scratch project. I asked the students to change some codes and add some codes. They did well. I showed some new blocks and taught the usage of blocks. They were interested in learning more from Scratch. Some of the students presented their science projects in the conference building. Some small kids performed dances and they did well. We gave some kids a Math kit from other NGO when they showed up at the booth. We were given highly nutritious food on all the three days of the event. I liked the food more than the “O” hotel food. We visited the Market and Hiranandani Mall with two Mumbai teachers.

On 26th Feb Rajaraman sir booked a car for us and we went to the lab of “The Innovation Story” (TIS) in Mumbai with our Asha staff. They explained about their lab and the Robots made by their students. I was really impressed to see the Robot. Amazon offered train our teachers to teach Robotics. So, we planned to go to Bangalore or Mumbai in May. Then we went roaming around the Mumbai city.

Visited Places such as : Siddhi Vinayak temple, Dobhi Ghat, Hanging Garden, Haji Ali , Dargah, Chowpatty beach and Gateway of India.

On 27th Feb we planned to visit the Elephanta Caves. Kavitha informed us that it would take 6 hours to visit so we cancelled the cab and took a share auto to visit all the places. Nathiya, Akilan, Dhinakran, and I went to Elephanta cave by boat. We enjoyed the boat ride a lot. There were interesting statues to see. We returned and went to Colaba market at 6.00 pm. We bought some things for our children and family.

Finally, we reached the railway station at 10.00 pm. The train started at 10.50 pm. Dhinakaran ordered dinner through the IRCTC app. They gave Chapathi at midnight. The next day also ordered our food.

On the 28th night at 8.30.pm, we reached Arrakkonam station. We picked a local train to reach Thiruvallur. My husband picked me up at Thiruvallur station. I reached home at 10.00 pm. The next day I showed my children all the things that I purchased.

Thanks to Asha for giving me such a wonderful opportunity.