The kid I very well could have been

In a different life, a happier life, this kid would probably be in college now. The arrogant and the carefree attitude, that I had taken for granted in my own college days, seems lost on this kid though. Lost on him, as he cleans my table without glancing up. The dark lines under his eyes speak of a story common to all the kids from this locality.

The average kid here starts working when he’s 11. The lucky ones get to continue their schooling part time, while the others drop out to support their family. With most of the kids taking up full time jobs by the time they’re 15, the poorly-staffed Government school here hardly ever sees a student continue beyond the eighth grade.

I cannot help but wonder why it is, that this kid is here cleaning the table, while I am on the other side of it. How did that happen? Maybe I am smarter. But didn’t my education have a significant influence on that? Maybe I am more hard-working. Well, all evidence so far points to the contrary. But maybe I am more deserving. Yes, that must be it. I deserved to be born to parents who made sure I got good education — that could not have just been blind luck! The truth is — I could have very well been this kid cleaning this table, and so could you. We just got lucky.

But I think there is still hope for this kid, for all such kids. They should not have to take up family responsibilities, they should not have to clean tables and wash cars. They should be given a chance to find their passion and pursue their dreams. We only have to break this seemingly endless cycle of poverty in their families, which forces more and more kids to drop out and take up jobs. If we could, their next generation might live a life where they actually look forward to the next morning.

“ I must study politics and war, that our children may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children a right to study art and poetry. ” — John Adams

It is with this goal that we are attempting this experiment — of teaching coding to these kids and finding them jobs when they are done. In our pilot project, we are hoping to pick up a couple of kids from a similar low income group and teach them the kind of coding that will make them easily employable (Web development, Python, Rails). To close this loop, we are talking to a few locally based start-ups and small scale software companies to understand the skill sets they would look for in a potential employee — and try incorporate the same in our training.

We are attempting to transform a kid who speaks broken English and has no computer literacy into a potential employee for a technology company. This is no small task and we do have a lot of learning to do along the way. Hopefully, we will discover a model that works before we run out of steam.

Any feedback on our plan will be highly appreciated — thank you ☺.