It is a very good thought to teach poor kids. Not everyone will think of it.
There are several NGOs and not-for-profit organizations which are involved in such activities. Several working professionals teach poor kids during weekends out of their own interest. Some of them which come into my mind is
The Belaku Trust
Aashayein Foundation, Bangalore
- To begin with, I would suggest you start teaching kids through such established organizations during the weekends and when you have the time and start interacting with like-minded people and you will know what are the deficiencies in the current systems and state-of-affairs and how you can overcome them with your new school.
- Raising capital is not difficult if you have a brilliant idea. Teaching poor kids and building a school is a brilliant idea, but, too many people are trying to solve this problem and hence it is that much more difficult to raise capital.
- I am involved with an initiative to empower people through quality education and in the process of raising funds to build a school. Feel free to have a look at it [1,2]. Get involved with an initiative like this and you will have an opportunity to meet and interact with like-minded people with whom you can bounce off ideas and discuss these issues to arrive at a good solution.
- Poor kids are everywhere! one thing a person can do is taking up responsibilities by giving financial aid. However, giving money for their education is a pain in one’s ass if one is struggling in their life.
- If the above option is off for you, consider giving used books to him for study! guide him to use local libraries for education. whatever position he may in. if he gave some good amount of time to spend around books, he will learn things. although it is not easy to self-learn but if he is willing to get out of his situation he must do it a hard way.
I recently came across a story of Anand Kumar (Founder of super 30 in Bihar). I saw a few of the videos of him about having willpower will drive you towards success. I truly had goosebumps while watching his speech. The moment I heard about all the story’s about his second coaching institute which only offers students coaching by promising their place in super 30 based on their performance. I felt that this guy literally smashed the hopes of many poor children who are will to study.
To be honest this particular way of helping like Anand Kumar is possible by very few.
Tutoring students by taking time off from your daily activities is not easy, so you can change the schedule of tutoring to weekends.
What to tutor?
As said above if one tutored a help-less child towards engineering or towards something else then it’s totally cool, but what if we think differently about what to tutor?
Suppose let us take a situation of a child being poor and not able to spend money on his education. If we take the case of orphans then there are orphan houses to help them. If the child is begging or so then we should hand over him to orphan houses. What your role in his education is, if you help the orphan house getting funds then they will collectively make education accessible to the children in the orphan house.
Suppose the poor kid has parents and it is just like their parents can’t afford money to spend for his child’s education. If you really want to help that kind of kids that you are aware of, then try to educate their parents about the true power of education then they may listen to you and make their children’s education possible. If at any point of their struggles, they need help then help them or guide them out of the situation.
Suppose the poor kid you are talking about is having a home, parents, work (like had some education and joined some laborious work or so) but want more in his life. Then help that kind of teenagers if they seek help from you by teaching them about business and investment. After all, it is money that we are talking about. So by teaching him about investment and some business ideas then you may change a little in his life and he is the one who should guide his life as a successful investor and having good life so that he can provide education to their children.