I joined Bookworm last year as an Assistant to the Resource persons during our LiS sessions in schools. During the summer vacations, Deepali asked me if I would lead classes as a Junior Resource Person, in the coming academic year. This was a shock and I almost fainted. I have been by nature an extremely shy and quiet person and take time to talk to people and open up. Imagine me going in front of a class full of children and reading stories, singing and playing games with them. This was all very scary. After much thinking, I decided to try it out, agreed and a new chapter started in my life at Bookworm.
The journey from being an Assistant to becoming a Junior Resource Person would have been not possible without encouragement and support from Deepali and it has given me a real boost.
For the first session on book care, Stephie helped me by sharing her ideas about the session plan. I found it helped me creatively in my planning. I was very nervous in spite of all my preparations. And to add to this nervousness, I panicked to see not one, but four teachers sitting in my class as observers! Vandana helped me greatly during this session by being the perfect Assistant throughout.
Due to this tension, I decided to go back to being an Assistant. However, everybody from the team including Deepali supported and encouraged me to overcome my fears and be firm.
‘The Seed’ by Deepa Balsaver was the next session which really went smoothly and all the credit goes to Deepali who guided me through the entire session plan and even went to the extent of getting seeds for me for the session.
So far I have conducted 13 sessions and each session, in turn, has taught me a lesson. My responsibilities have now increased as compared to last year but this I feel has taught me a lot. Each of my sessions is a two-way process wherein I teach the children something and at the same time, I learn something from them too. These children have raised the bar for me and this ensures that I put a lot of extra effort in my preparations.
I have now learnt many songs which I used to admire Stephie for singing. I have now even learnt to write reports, which earlier I felt was the most difficult task.
I have overcome my shyness and have now transformed into a new Rohini who can read stories, act and sing. I feel I have come out of my shell.