The Ashoka Tree Blog

The whole contention of whether “it takes a village” to raise a child is still up in the air with no clear insight as to whether it does or not.   What is not up for discussion, however, is that it absolutely does ‘not’ take a village to help other children smile. A small act of kindness towards an unknown child in distress can go a long way in the way this child feels towards other humans later.   Take for instance the little boy you see sitting outside a packed restaurant waiting for his lottery-ticket seller father to finish his day.   Here’s a child who’s probably hungrier than ever, what with the fantastic aromas drifting out the hotel’s kitchen window.   Share the wonderful feeling with your 6-year-old son – teach him what it means to buy a packet of food and hand it over to that child sitting outside waiting.   The smile on that child’s face will give your son more knowledge and satisfaction than 15 years of schooling ever could.   It takes jus...

How much thought goes in to choosing the right playschool for your little one?   How much research do you do?   How many people do you ask about the playschool and how often do you ask people for their opinion on the whole schooling system as it were? Imagine for a minute you couldn’t afford the school you wanted to send your child to.   Imagine you couldn’t just send your child away for the normal 2 hours it takes at his/her usual playschool but needed to have your child away for the whole day while you were away at work.   Imagine you spent the day cleaning and cooking at another person’s home and hoped your child had a meal to eat at their playschool.   Imagine you were a migrant laborer and you had to send your child to the local playschool in an unknown language only because you and your spouse had to both be away all day at a construction site, barely making enough to cover rent and a single meal. An ‘Anganwad’i is a government-run playschool cre...