As a team, we were discussing who would work on a piece for International Development Week, an initiative promoted by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). I volunteered because the theme of this year’s week was Building A Better World, and this is the question that has been preoccupying my mind. How does one build a better world? How do you ensure people turn out to be good people?
I spend my days at Adhyayan working with educators and school leaders from leading schools across the country who work tirelessly and sometimes thanklessly to educate the students walking into their schools. We also introduce schools to our standards for a good school, some of which I’ll share below:
Our diagnostic focuses on empowering students and giving them agency to craft their own learning journeys and leave their mark on the world. We encourage schools to:
- Create supportive environments in which students feel safe, confident and capable
- Enrich students with a curriculum that caters to their diverse needs and interests and gives them exposure to communities around them and the real world
- Give students opportunities to reflect on the world, their place in it and their responsibility towards it.
Many times, I’ve been asked why I haven’t pursued alternative career opportunities. Consulting. Finance. Economics. Entrepreneurship. Media. While career paths aren’t necessarily easier than the other, there’s something that makes me feel like education is the answer – it is the route to development, to progress, to growth, to change, to success – for people and the world at large. Kavita, the founder of Adhyayan and one of my mentors here once said, “I never give up on people” and I have seen her stand by that consistently in my time here. It takes faith to ask, “how can we show up for people better?” She also often says that capacity building is an act of love. And I am trying to keep reminding myself of these so that I can live these statements as beautifully as she does. To never give up on people or the world, and to show up to it with love.
As I reflect on International Development Week and the theme of making the world better, I want to conclude with this – the state of the world can fill one with despair, and to show faith in change, despite everything, requires courage, belief and hope. And to me, education is the ultimate act of hope.
