Round Square International Service Project

King Constantine award Dhruv Bhalla

Dhruv Bhalla has been awarded this medal for the year 2022-23 for his active involvement in various education equality initiatives and contribution to the school community.

 

The prestigious King Constantine Award is presented annually to an exceptional individual from every Round Square Member School who has done outstanding work within their local or school community and truly embraces the RS IDEALS.

 

 

Dhruv Bhalla's initiative:

 

 

Dhruv is extremely passionate about increasing equity and access to education in under-resourced communities. As such, he has been teaching 90+ students at Holy Mother English School in Malvani, a slum in Mumbai, for the last 3 years. He describes this as "the single most meaningful experience of [his] life". He started by conducting regular online math classes to help bridge the education-gap caused by the pandemic. The pandemic was especially devastating for this vulnerable community because they lacked access to mobile phones/the internet, leading to 8-10 months of lost learning. This had profound effects on their foundational math abilities, leaving some students far behind grade-level. For example, 8th grade students were just about learning how to add and subtract. So, Dhruv volunteered with Teach for India to help provide extra classes during the lockdown.

 

 

As an aspiring teacher, Dhruv also recognised an excessive burden being borne on the school’s teachers. The school had only 4 teachers, with each teacher being responsible for 90 students at once. This large class size meant poor learning outcomes and a mountain of work for the teachers. However, they had no choice – the low-income school had to support the entire community. Moreover, the teachers were also responsible for attendance, family visits, socio-emotional learning classes and fundraising. In many ways, these teachers go beyond just teaching and act as second parents, taking on many more roles than they are given credit for. Recognizing this, Dhruv worked as a teacher’s assistant by making resources, checking homework, and grading tests to relieve some burden. He also worked independently to lead his own classroom, thereby allowing the group to be split into smaller classes with more individual attention for each student. Finally, he also created a tracker that could be used to record the progress, test scores, homework completion and attendance of each student.

 

 

Dhruv also organized a student talent showcase and a science fair to raise over Rs. 1 lakh for the school. These events allowed students to explore extracurricular activities beyond their academics, fuelling their creativity and curiosity.

 

Dhruv reflects, “I am happy to have inspired them to pursue their dreams: Isma wants to be a doctor, Hajira an artist and Imam a footballer! And they have inspired me with their energy, kind-heartedness, camaraderie, and dedication. Most of all, I love how they refer to me as their “bhaiya” (brother). Not “sir” or “teacher”, but bhaiya!”

 

 

Apart from teaching, Dhruv undertook research to investigate how socioeconomic background, gender and geography contribute to education inequality and to explore barriers to digital education, a pressing issue in today’s digitized world. He believes that understanding the causes behind inequity is fundamental to resolving it and that education technology (ed-tech) has significant potential of increasing access to learning. As such, he worked with the 17,000ft Foundation to address education inequality in remote areas of Ladakh by creating asynchronous ed-tech learning content, impacting over 50,000 students in rural schools. He also interned with the Avanti Foundation to investigate barriers to accessing ed-tech resources in rural India.

 

 

Within the DAIS community, Dhruv led the Kick for a Cause CAS project to raise Rs. 90,000 and donate two football goals to develop the sports infrastructure at the Aseema Foundation, because he believes physical education is an essential part of a child’s schooling. He also led a team of 15 volunteers in teaching English and creating resources to support 40 students at the foundation.

 

Overall, Round Square has been an integral part of Dhruv’s high-school years. From leading and mentoring juniors in planning several events to representing school at international conferences, he believes that RS has shown him the power of service and spreading joy. He mentored and passed on leadership and organizational skills to 50 juniors to carry on his Round Square legacy at DAIS. This involved giving effective feedback, motivating the students and being a role-model/senior leader to the juniors. As Dhruv quotes, “Most of all, I have brought back the RS philosophy to my school by leading my own events and mentoring junior leaders. This is by far the most meaningful part of my RS journey because it helps ensure a long-term impact on my community.”

 

Thank you note by Dhruv’s students: