Mentoring Testimonial by Deepa Nair

Deepa Nair, Business Analyst

KRITI foundation has given me a platform to train students of 10th class with soft skills between Dec '20 to Apr '21. I was immensely proud to share my knowledge and experience with these children during the pandemic, and teaching them how to overcome adversities in life, and to stay positive. The course content was well structured and delivered to us by Sreelata mam. This not only helped to save time, but to stay focussed in content delivery. The students who came from poorer family backgrounds have shown keen interest in learning new skills in life which may not be academic, but will prepare them for their academics. We were a team of 3 volunteer mentors conducting zoom classes from three corners of India. It was fun knowing about other mentors too. One of the students, Shakuntala, was brilliant in understanding the content, and was regular in attending the classes. I will always remember this time of my life, as it has also helped me to focus on my strengths, and stay positive during these adverse times. I am looking forward to more such opportunities from KRITI in future.

Sneha Amruth

IT professional

It was a pleasure to be a part of Kriti's Project Disha, an online mentoring program for grade 10 students. I had the opportunity to mentor, interact and learn from a group of six students.

Academics is always given top priority and life skills are often perceived as an "extra" thing to know but we all know that it is Life Skills that helps sustain ourselves to challenges of everyday life. To cope with increasing pace and adapting to changes of life, it is imperative for students to have skills which equips them in decision making, dealing with stress, emotional intelligence, planning etc and sets them ready for the unknown.

More than ever, the time we're living in today, has proved the significance of these skills.

Kriti's Project Disha mentoring program addresses rightly this issue. This journey of 4 months gave me a chance to guide and empower these students. It also provided me an opportunity to re-learn the importance of these skills through a well-structured and comprehensive guide that Kriti provides. Before every session the mentors have an orientation on the topic going to be discussed that week and it is something that helped me unlearn, learn and clear my bias before I go ahead and teach the students.

The experience I had mentoring was truly humbling and it was always a joyous moment interacting and guiding them.

Thanks to Kriti for taking this much needed initiative and giving an opportunity to both learn and mentor the students.

Swatie Kapil

Entrepreneur

What began as responding to a social media call for volunteering, led me to a wonderful programme by the Kriti Trust. The entire programme that had so far been conducted in the offline mode had to move online owing to the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic. Nobody knew how it will work out, what challenges we could potentially face and if we could achieve the desired outcome. There were language and technological challenges also that had to be considered. However, nothing could have prepared us for what the next few weeks would bring with them.

Over the first few sessions we slowly became familiar with each other, all while sharing anecdotes, asking questions, laughing and also showing some tough love. It was wonderful to find a bunch of teenagers sitting at the very precipice of possibility and hopefully arming them with the knowledge that the world could be their oyster.

The modules were well structured and thought-out. Kudos to the Team at Kriti Trust for that. Some of these had immediate relevance for the children and the others were like guiding blocks towards a more productive and wholesome life. Its not just the children I feel who hopefully benefitted from these interactions. The content felt deeply relevant to me personally as well. This opportunity which would have never come my way had we not been in the middle of a pandemic makes one realize the importance of community. It resonates the message of this wonderful song by Mark Shepard: ‘Together we can change the world’.

I am looking forward to see where these children go from here and my best wishes are with them today and always.

Philomina Joachim George

B. Ed Student in English and Economics

Covid-19 has shaken the educational system and given a new path forward to learning and teaching methods. The most affected are the students of Government schools. At Kriti’s mentoring program, I got to interact with young aspiring students of various schools in Telangana. Young students with bright dreams, preparing for their first big step- the 10th board exam.

With Zoom calls and WhatsApp calls, we conducted 11 fruitful sessions on various soft skills and life skills that will help children to have the right attitude in future. The spirit of the students is to be appreciated. Despite poor network and limited resources of technology, the students attended every class with dedication. The mentoring program was a learning experience for me too for which I am very thankful to the team at Kriti, Sreelata mam, Subhashini mam, and Sumana mam, who have prepared very good content material for each module, which made my mentoring process very easy. Looking forward to being a part of Kriti in future projects too.

Lasya Lolla

IT professional

I have been working as a volunteer in Kriti for 3 years now. The first thing that caught my mind was that they are mentoring students for their career building apart from just sponsoring their studies. It is completely vital because even those who can afford sometimes lack proper guidance. Seeing such great team, I wanted to be part of Kriti. After working here, I realised that there were many students with great talent but needed our help to choose the right track. I feel a great sense of satisfaction when I interact with the students, understand their point of view and try to help them build their future. The students are also very grateful to you which makes you feel more proud.

Working here as a volunteer helped me to learn a lot of things and improve my leadership skills. I'm looking forward to contribute more in other initiatives by Kriti and continue on this wonderful journey.