SS10
May 7, 2010
Undergraduate / to do a "Service" that would be beneficial for the society, Personal Essay Help [2]
Please help me improve the essay ...
Prompt: Describe and discuss a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning for you.
As a part of the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award Program about an year and some months ago, I was required to do a "Service" that would be beneficial for the society. I had different choices to choose from and ended up choosing "Teaching a child how to read and write". The next thing that I had to do was to find someone suitable for this criterion. My summer vacation was going on at that time and I was suggested that I should be going to my village to find someone like that.
At my village, I was introduced to an 8 year old girl who was deprived of getting education at school due to poverty and misfortune. I asked her parents whether they would have a problem if I teach their daughter and with their permission, I began teaching her how to read and write.
While being a teacher, I noticed how exceptionally talented she was. It wasn't a very tough task for me to teach her the English and Bengali alphabets as she was a very quick learner. She seemed to have high interest in Mathematics, like me, and she learned the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of two numbers in a single day. My duration of stay at the village was only a month because of the length of my vacation time; however, she had, by the end of the month, developed a strong base to receive higher education. I was extremely happy with my effort and felt something was different in me. There was some sort of a change in me. I who came to the village to complete the task required for the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award Program, now began to think about doing something more than the Award Program demanded.
Upon coming back, I became busy with my daily life. I would have almost forgotten about my experience if I had not received a letter from that girl after about two months. I felt very proud when I saw her writing letter. After all, I taught how to write.
In the letter, she had written about her keen interest in pursuing higher education, her dreams to become an established mathematician in the future and her inability to convert her dream into reality because of poverty and due to her marriage that her parents had scheduled to occur in a few days. With very basic knowledge of writing, limited vocabulary and few spelling and grammatical mistakes, she made me drop a few tears from my eyes. I rushed to my cupboard where I had kept the savings from my pocket money and immediately left for the village. This was more like a stimulus for me to do something that I wanted to do after I left the village.
At the village, I had faced great difficulty in convincing her parents not to force their daughter for the marriage (child marriage is a common problem in rural areas in Bangladesh), but at last I was successful. I took her to a local school, got her admitted in Grade 1 and cleared her tuition fees for the next three months (I had only this much of savings being a seventeen year old school boy) and assured her parents that I would be paying for her education and all the other cost associated with her studies. I left the village feeling that the change that I had before two months had gone bigger.
While going back home, I was thinking about the whole matter. I was disturbed by the concept of child marriage, deprivation of education due to poverty. I was tense until I came up with a plan. Upon reaching home, I discussed the whole experience with my mother and she suggested me to go to a Non-Governmental Organization named CEWS which had been working for unfortunate children like that girl. Soon I was found at the head office of CEWS, waiting at their reception to meet the General Secretary of the Organization.
The General Secretary had reviewed my proposal to set up a school and showed little interest in helping me out. I came back but did not give up. I worked day and night for about a week and made a presentation for him and his organization, informing about the village's condition, included pictures of the various other children like that girl I had come across, and pointed out that a solution to all the problems would be establishing a school which would provide free education to unfortunate children. Upon seeing my perseverance and my strong effort to convince the General Secretary, he showed interest and the organization officially took the project in their hand.
Within few months, the school was established and during these months, I had regularly visited the village because the organization made me one of the Project Heads. Watching several unfortunate children along with that girl going to school with their books in their hands, I was delighted. I was proud of my achievement. Yes, I consider this attending of all these children at the school as my achievement, a significant one that I am going to remember my whole life and that have an exceptional meaning to me.
P.S. I have received the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze and Silver Award and now doing the Gold Award. I am also an active member of that organization CEWS.
Please help me improve the essay ...
Prompt: Describe and discuss a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning for you.
As a part of the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award Program about an year and some months ago, I was required to do a "Service" that would be beneficial for the society. I had different choices to choose from and ended up choosing "Teaching a child how to read and write". The next thing that I had to do was to find someone suitable for this criterion. My summer vacation was going on at that time and I was suggested that I should be going to my village to find someone like that.
At my village, I was introduced to an 8 year old girl who was deprived of getting education at school due to poverty and misfortune. I asked her parents whether they would have a problem if I teach their daughter and with their permission, I began teaching her how to read and write.
While being a teacher, I noticed how exceptionally talented she was. It wasn't a very tough task for me to teach her the English and Bengali alphabets as she was a very quick learner. She seemed to have high interest in Mathematics, like me, and she learned the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of two numbers in a single day. My duration of stay at the village was only a month because of the length of my vacation time; however, she had, by the end of the month, developed a strong base to receive higher education. I was extremely happy with my effort and felt something was different in me. There was some sort of a change in me. I who came to the village to complete the task required for the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award Program, now began to think about doing something more than the Award Program demanded.
Upon coming back, I became busy with my daily life. I would have almost forgotten about my experience if I had not received a letter from that girl after about two months. I felt very proud when I saw her writing letter. After all, I taught how to write.
In the letter, she had written about her keen interest in pursuing higher education, her dreams to become an established mathematician in the future and her inability to convert her dream into reality because of poverty and due to her marriage that her parents had scheduled to occur in a few days. With very basic knowledge of writing, limited vocabulary and few spelling and grammatical mistakes, she made me drop a few tears from my eyes. I rushed to my cupboard where I had kept the savings from my pocket money and immediately left for the village. This was more like a stimulus for me to do something that I wanted to do after I left the village.
At the village, I had faced great difficulty in convincing her parents not to force their daughter for the marriage (child marriage is a common problem in rural areas in Bangladesh), but at last I was successful. I took her to a local school, got her admitted in Grade 1 and cleared her tuition fees for the next three months (I had only this much of savings being a seventeen year old school boy) and assured her parents that I would be paying for her education and all the other cost associated with her studies. I left the village feeling that the change that I had before two months had gone bigger.
While going back home, I was thinking about the whole matter. I was disturbed by the concept of child marriage, deprivation of education due to poverty. I was tense until I came up with a plan. Upon reaching home, I discussed the whole experience with my mother and she suggested me to go to a Non-Governmental Organization named CEWS which had been working for unfortunate children like that girl. Soon I was found at the head office of CEWS, waiting at their reception to meet the General Secretary of the Organization.
The General Secretary had reviewed my proposal to set up a school and showed little interest in helping me out. I came back but did not give up. I worked day and night for about a week and made a presentation for him and his organization, informing about the village's condition, included pictures of the various other children like that girl I had come across, and pointed out that a solution to all the problems would be establishing a school which would provide free education to unfortunate children. Upon seeing my perseverance and my strong effort to convince the General Secretary, he showed interest and the organization officially took the project in their hand.
Within few months, the school was established and during these months, I had regularly visited the village because the organization made me one of the Project Heads. Watching several unfortunate children along with that girl going to school with their books in their hands, I was delighted. I was proud of my achievement. Yes, I consider this attending of all these children at the school as my achievement, a significant one that I am going to remember my whole life and that have an exceptional meaning to me.
P.S. I have received the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze and Silver Award and now doing the Gold Award. I am also an active member of that organization CEWS.
