MUKTANGAN 2020-21

Muktangan means “open air” and our NGO strives to provide a true sense of freedom or open air to students. This year has been especially hard for the children we try and provide this freedom to. Through the challenging times, we have found light in celebrating and cherishing the bonds we hold close. It was a sudden realisation that students at Muktangan had nothing to look forward for Christmas. It was up to us to make a change. So, my fellow peers and I came up with a project "Always here for you", where we sent cards to students in such NGOs along with some good wishes. These cards were personalized and this was our effort towards spreading happiness.

We have also made worksheets for Grade 6 students which involved puzzles, crosswords, fill in the blanks and scrambled words. These were for English, Mathematics, General Knowledge and Science. The experience and the collaborative effort was enriching and it helped us be very efficient. I realised that we still had to find out the socio-economic background of the students to make our lectures specific to them and applicable within their means. We also found out that such foundational soft skills were difficult to teach unless they were integrated since a young age. For us, we were guided by our parents but these children would have it different and so our approach should consider that aspect as well.

We constantly tried to keep the lesson interactive. We put in a lot of effort, and every second was a delightful experience because we were paid back in smiles!. It has been an experience that has ignited our flames for social work as we shall always continue to give back to society.

- Aryan Gupta