Just 16, he changes poor children's lives

Bengaluru: Most students look forward to some fun and relaxation during their summer holidays, but not 16-year-old Urvish Ramaiya. An eleventh grade student of Greenwood High International School in the city, he has been working through his summer vacations  as a computer tutor for students of a government school.

Not only has he put together a course work covering computer hardware basics, typing, introduction to MS Word, Excel and Paint among other basic computer skills for the children of the school, but he also takes them on  study tours to various tech organisations to give them exposure to industries.

What’s more, the teen is now on a crowd-funding mission to buy modern computers for the laboratory in the school where he teaches. He jumped at the opportunity to give up his summer hols for something more meaningful when he heard that Ananya Foundation, an NGO, was looking for a computer tutor for students of grades four and five at the K. Dommasandra School. 

“As I hope to become a computer engineer some day, I love the  subject and as I  also want to serve society, when I got the opportunity to do both , I didn’t think twice,” he explains. Moreover,  he has a good example in his father, who regularly does  community service and his love for teaching, he reveals, is inspired by his own teachers. “I always looked up to Ms Arpita (Banerjee) who taught me Geography in class 10 as she engaged with each student, determining our strengths and weaknesses and  providing a personalised approach to teaching,” he recalls.