Related posts
No posts found.
City:
Vrindavan
Country:
India
I have told you I would use my blog entries on Sundays to tell you what is currently going on in my life. If you have read my diary entry of day before yesterday, you probably already know what has been occupying my mind a lot in the past week and weeks. Of course, corporal punishment in Indian schools, the videos Pawan brought home and the consequences, us going to the principal, the media and the response by readers and viewers.
You can imagine that it has been difficult for us to hear Pawan tell of the abuse happening in his school. He is our child, has been for so long now, we just couldn’t simply accept that he was being beaten in school. It was also hard to see all those videos – but at least we knew that we could now do something against it. We could actually bring a change for the students of this school and maybe more, by spreading awareness among teachers and parents!
After our talk with the principal in which we were denied the written assurance that no child would be beaten in school anymore, we contacted the media. Within a few hours, reporters were at our Ashram to see the video clips and to interview Pawan and me. It felt good to have taken the next step – and we were of course waiting to see what the journalists would create out of the clips and how it would impact.
When the TV channel started broadcasting, we received a phone call and the request for Pawan and me to come to their studio in Delhi. They wanted to have us there live and talk with us after showing the clips!
So Pawan and I left to Delhi, our young hero excited but handling it all very well! For a whole hour, the anchor asked Pawan and me about the incidents and our opinion and called different politicians of our area during the show as well. It was a very good program and included all the points, from the incident itself and the fear that parents and children feel to the need to give teachers a training for the right attitude towards their students.
Still while we were in the studio, Yashendu and Purnendu received phone calls from different other media houses who wanted to talk about this topic as well! In the car, on the way back, I gave a phone interview to another TV channel. Finally back at home, two further teams of local channels were at our doorstep.
Yesterday evening, Pawan and I were just exhausted from talking to reporters and journalists the whole day – but happy because we now surely believe that we have started a change! In that school at least but I am pretty sure that other schools will be careful in future as well to better stick to the rules and guidelines!
Today, the news were in the three main newspapers of our town and my blog entry as well as our video have become very popular online. It will still spread.
A step has been made and I am sure we can take it even further!