Please help me with this essay. It is written for both of the following questions.
Que - Tell us how you would address the questions raised by the quotation below, or reflect upon an experience you have had that was relevant to these questions. "How can we unlearn the practices of inequality? In other words, how do we increase our capacities not just to act without racism but to actively promote racial equality?" - Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies, and Faculty Associate, Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University.
Que - In this essay, please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more. You may write about anything-from personal experiences or interests to intellectual pursuits. (Please answer in 500 words or less.) (Yale University)
What will you choose if you are given an opportunity to teach a hundred thousand people what you have fun doing and in doing so, improve their lives, learn their cultures and contribute towards you social development ? I think you immediately grab it. And that's what I did when CEO of a major business alliance asked me to be a part of national campaign which aims to train the people belonging to minor castes and tribes in India.
For past two years, I have been part of IT Skills Development Initiative organized by National Association of Software and Services Companies. Through this campaign, students and professionals travel to rural parts of the country and organize workshops on basic computing. We would introduce the inductees to fundamentals of computers, mobiles and other kinds of electronics and their use in day to day life.
India, being the country hosting more than thousand different castes and colors of people, is certainly under the evil of discrimination. This tends to rear its ugly head in terms of inequality in distribution of financial resources, educational facilities and other forms. The lack of basic knowledge in field of IT is one of major concerns with respect to this. Being a hard core computer lover, it was heartbreaking to see the lack of computing knowledge among the isolated classes whenever I would travel through countryside. On such events, I would generally try to ask the local youth about the reasons for this and majority said this was due to lack of proper training facilities and costly education in cities. One such experience left me awed and at the same time a little sad when I tried to teach such young people of my age in a local ghetto. The students were able to easily pick up concepts after a few days and were even able to start programming in span of one month. Such hidden talent is present in our backward classes and we have yet to tap it. Thus, when presented with an opportunity to rectify this situation, I quickly jumped on the wagon.
Being a part of this campaign have given me an opportunity to make a difference in some lives, induce in them the same exhilaration and curiosity that I have towards technology and open up new avenues of jobs for them. I felt it as a duty to help my country's youth in every way I can to bring them up to the speed with the revolution of Computing and modern electronics. This will help our society in a small yet concrete way to bridge the gap between the elite and the underprivileged. Inequality of any type, be it racial, caste or financial, only tends to weaken the social structure and fighting it with education and appropriate training is a big step towards curbing it. Working together with like-minded people, I think I was able to contribute towards betterment of Indian society and its progress towards a digital literacy.
Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
