My travels across the country has had me interact with youth, and children.

As I compare opportunities for children to get a quality of learning environment, hands down, cities are doing better. Whether I interacted with children in Shirdi, in Ellora, in Hyderabad or most recently in Jarauda panda, a village in Uttar Pradesh, children were same when it comes to the level of energy they carry.

The difference I saw in Ellora, and Shirdi, both in Maharashtra, India, was that these children were selling on the streets, while kids in cities were actually attending school. These kids in Ellora and Shirdi were selling to earn for their notebooks, pens and pencils, which I hope they were doing during their holidays. This touched me more deeply than anything else I had seen interacting with these children.

While the kids in Hyderabad were attending school, interviewing the teachers in the government school, I found out that one of the most sought for donations in these schools is notebooks, pencils and pens. Very similar to what kids in Ellora and Shirdi were asking for on the streets. Watch the interview with Govt school teachers below.

The kids in both Shirdi and Ellora have opportunities selling to tourists visiting the temple near Ellora, and eventually open stalls selling flowers, beads, prasad (devotees buying to offer food in temples that is considered holy and auspicious), or become guide to the Ellora caves. I had hired a wheelchair in Ellora due to the climb that she would otherwise not be able to walk and miss visiting the beautiful caves.

On interviewing the kids this time along in Madinaguda Government school I found that kids aspired to choose from a varied profession compared to what I had heard from them in 2016 survey I had done. At that time girls wanted to become teachers, and boys wanted to join the police force. It was a delight to hear from them on what different professions they aspired for. Watch this video from the kids i interviewed.

The interviews with the Voice of the youth (watch the Voice of the Youth on Worldreels channel) has also revealed that kids with more education have done better later in their lives than those who have not had the opportunities to go to school or go to better schools.

Their is a lot we can do in villages to bring them at par with what’s available in the cities for the children and elevate the living standards in India. I believe that the youth of our future has a great potential and we can help in different ways to have them dream big and help them achieve their dreams.