Students Take on Children's Rights Project in India

Three-week service-learning project is “life changing” for six students

August 30, 2007 — It’s one thing to study, read, and worry about devastating poverty, children exploited by employers, and young lives seemingly devoid of hope or aspiration. It’s another to experience it first-hand and then to wrestle with the complexity of finding solutions.

For three weeks this summer, six Phillips Academy students were immersed in multiple levels of involvement in a children’s rights program in Mumbai, India, called Niswarth (which means “selfless” in Hindi). There, living and working with Indian counterparts from the Udayachal School in Mumbai, they studied child labor injustices through two large education non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—Akanksha, which means “hope” in Hindi, and Pratham, whose motto and goal is “every child in school and learning well.”

Raj Mundra, associate dean of the Office of Community and Multicultural Development (CAMD) and instructor in biology at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., created the program and led the group, along with one of Andover’s new teaching fellows in community service, Alana Rush. The goals of the program, Mundra explained, were to help students understand the “complexity of cross-cultural issues in the developing world, to promote global understanding, and to teach the power of turning knowledge and goodness into action.” Mundra is working to tie Niswarth issues and experiences into Phillips Academy curricula in economics, international relations, law, and ethics.

Victoria (Tori) Wilmarth ’09, a Phillips Academy student who lives in Andover, says she has gained “a broader perspective on the world and was greatly inspired by the optimism and perseverance of the students at Akanksha.” Visiting homes of children in slum neighborhoods of Mumbai was a shock, she said, yet people were “so welcoming, so supportive…they have so little, yet they were so willing to share everything they had.” She said the experience reaffirmed her life direction to enter the field of international relations to grapple with poverty and social injustice issues.

The students’ experiences were intense. They spent the first week getting to know their fellow students from the Udayachal School, setting goals, learning the basics of photography for a photo journalism project, starting personal journals of their trip, studying the law and the UN charter on children’s rights, and meeting the youngsters—aged 12 to 15—served by the NGOs. One Andover student, Kie Watanabe ’08 of Tokyo, reflected in her journal that she spent much of the first night in Mumbai “avoiding eye contact with crowds of men as we drove by ramshackle slums—men I perceived as dirty strangers and preferred not to come in contact with,” a dismissive first impression that was destined to change.

Week two took them into the heart of the Mumbai slums. They met young children working eight to 10 hours a day in embroidery factories, scavenging for food in the local dumps, bathing in filthy street water, and living in meager homes with their families. Watanabe was amazed to find herself sharing soft drinks—a luxury—in a tiny slum home just like those she had recently disparaged, interacting with families “in very human and touching ways.” They also met with the state labor minister and his staff, discussed child labor law enforcement with the local police commissioner, and spent a weekend with a successful microfinance project in Satara run by an innovative new bank that focused on helping women achieve financial independence. One night, their meeting with the labor minister was featured on the evening news broadcast. Throughout it all, they worked with the children of the Akanksha and Pratham programs taking pictures—hundreds of photographs that recorded their lives and reflected their dreams, and that spoke far more than words.

During the third week, they worked with “Railway Children,” a group that helps runaways and homeless children, and they mounted an exhibit of the children’s photographs. A prominent art gallery in Mumbai hosted the photo exhibition, titled “Exposure: Mumbai’s Unseen Heroes.”  The high school students and the young photographers were on hand to explain the meaning of their work. Mundra said the exhibit sparked good conversation about different ways students and Indian citizens can help further the work of the NGOs. Among those in attendance was the US Consul General in Mumbai, Michael Owen. He remarked to Mundra, “Your students got a great opportunity to learn about children’s rights and life in some of Mumbai’s slums, and my conversation with them certainly made it clear that it was a very enriching and broadening experience.”

Matt Cranney ’08, also from Andover, Mass., was struck by how bold, bright, and politically sophisticated the slum children of Akanksha and Pratham were. “They met my highest expectations,” he said, demonstrating in his opinion, the undeniable importance of education in giving people in poverty the chance to advance themselves. He said the Niswarth experience fueled his dreams to work in developing countries, perhaps by becoming a physician and starting medical clinics abroad.

Teaching fellow Alana Rush, who has just joined the Andover faculty after posts at the University of Florida and abroad, observed that the Phillips Academy students got so much out of the program because they came with a different attitude than most American students doing service projects in developing countries. “They clearly came not to ‘help’ others less fortunate, but to learn from them and alongside them. Their approach was inquisitive and open-minded, and as a result, they had a much more meaningful experience.”

The Niswarth Program was funded by several sources: the Abbot Academy Association, the Godrej family of India—former Phillips Academy parents—who supplied room and board, and grants from two Phillips Academy families—Bill and Elizabeth Reid, whose daughter, Alexa ’07, was part of the group, and Bill and Terri Carr Muran, whose son, Billy, is in the class of 2010. The rest of the funds came from student tuition.

Mundra says he plans to expand the program next year. He is most impressed, he says, “by how inspired students become once they see ways they can make a real difference in the world.” That makes Niswarth aptly named. Phillips Academy’s long-standing motto and a key part of its mission has always been non sibi—not for self.

After returning home at the end of June, Tori Wilmarth immediately was off to Brown University to take a course called “Leadership and Global Engagement.” The course required her to create her own action plan in her community that will make a positive change in an issue she cares about.  She has decided to start a pen-pal program connecting Phillips Academy students with the Akanksha children she worked with in Mumbai. Her idea is to connect young people so they can learn about different cultures, as well as gain a fresh perspective on their own country. Plus, she says, the children in Mumbai will be able to improve their English—a critical tool in their efforts to succeed. “Considering India’s rising place in the world,” Wilmarth explained, “I think connection between the U.S. and India is very important and will continue to be so in the future.”