The Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the pace of life and livelihood for everyone. People could not get out of their homes, only venturing out for essentials and now in Unlock-1 for “roji-roti”. Industries have come to a grinding halt, bringing the small and medium scale businesses to the brink of collapse. Startups are facing tougher challenges. On the one hand, where the bigger companies are trying to survive by cutting costs, resorting to slashing of salaries and laying off people, SCHOOGLINK has been continuously supporting its staff in these tough times and has endeavoured to engineer solutions for Rural India such that its students don’t face any hindrance in their day to day education and continue to learn and grow.
Needless to say, the sudden lockdown gave us no time to prepare. The centres were shut abruptly, and also the schools, leaving the students with no access to education. Many of our field operators and young teaching professionals were stuck in very remote places. And this brought to the fore, the perseverance of our staff and the strength of our Grassroots.
As we move towards the gradual opening up of lockdowns and restrictions, it is a good time to reminisce over how we served (and survived) through the last couple of months. We bring to you a few stories that inspire, if not awe you.
Cycling home
We were touched when we came to know that one of our Teaching Assistants, Mr. Sandeep, cycled 257 Kms to reach back home. And yet, he did not stop teaching his students and continued to take his classes using video conferencing tools while we worked on integrating a more robust solution.
Office @ PG
One of our senior video editing team members, Mr. Avinash, got locked down in his 10 x 10 feet PG room in Gurgaon, but continued to work through the pandemic, converting it to a makeshift office cum residence for over two months.
Home far away from home
Mr. Nitesh, part of our video editing team and recording crew, landed in Anuppur District in Madhya Pradesh in mid March just after the Holi festival, only to realize that the makeshift studio office would have to double up as his home quarters for many months to come. Staying away from his home, food outlets closed, curfews, cooking, editing, recording, pretty much taking care of everything all alone, a one man army stationed at one of our farthest outposts.
Schooglink LIVE
With all schools and Grassroots centres closed down, the next natural progression was towards online classes. But our audience did not have computers, desktops or laptops. And we did not want to just do fancy presentations on a video conferencing tool. We wanted to give them a feel of a classroom sitting at home. Our young teaching professionals, Mr. Sudhir & Mr. Uttam, along with our ground team support, converted one of our smart classrooms to a LIVE classroom and ensured that our students could continue to study uninterrupted.
Facing all the challenges and difficulties, the Schooglink Team is standing together stronger than ever and continues to serve.
Schooglink is committed and continues to support all its teachers and ground staff in these tough times, agile to re-deploy any locked out resources and ensure that no one gets affected economically by the virus.
With 50+ centres in Madhya Pradesh, and 20+ centres in Bihar, we aim to reach each and every student in the remotest of areas in Rural India and deliver quality education.