Today's event was a colorful programme organized by the local members along with FSMK. MC was a local kid, who compered the entire event excellently :)
G Ramakrishna, Editor of Hosatu was the Chief Guest. He spoke passionately about the untapped potential abundantly present within the children in places like the AC3. Lack of opportunities, cribbing at fate and being complacent with their living conditions, according to him were the evils haunting them,and that anyone who wanted to change his life to betterment could do it. He invoked the lives of Elridge Cleaver and Ho Chi Minh , who defied the circumstances and became leaders. His talk was an inspirational one, mixed with passion and anguish about the disparity in society. He released the "Namma Debian" operating system, by handing over the same to the eldest woman in their community.
This was followed by a sensational speech by an about 10 year old kid, who beautifully interleaved quotes from The Quran and The Gita while emphasizing the importance of education in life. He also reminisced Dr.B.R. Ambedkar, who is considered to be the Savior of the downtrodden people in India, for the benefits he ensured them in the Constitution of India.
The colour to the event was the exuberant music and dance by the localites. A music troupe of one Mr. Arul, inhabitant at the AC3 region performed peppy songs, which got all of us groove to the rhythm of the beats.
The issue of Accessibility software was echoed by a beautiful young lady Ms.Vidya with partial visual impairment and an associate of her's, to the audience in a manner which struck chords with them. She demonstrated the proprietary tool which she uses for screen reading, and FSMK raised the voice for refined development of such in Free Software domain.
With all the local people enthusiastically participating in an event conceptually still distant to them, but with a hope that at least it would benefit their kids, a purpose is strengthened:
To continue trying to do the little we can in not letting their hopes down.
Sensational talk by 10 year old kid from the local community....
Congratulations FSMK & AC3.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Thomas
It's a really commendable effort on your part to be involved in something like this - engaging with the ignored.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do find would be a challenge henceforth would be the ease with which these people would be able to /read/ and /understand/ the sort of literal/bookish Kannada translations that are often used in the incompletely translated interfaces. Kannada translations are like Queen's English today (as compared to the simplified English - and spellings - used in the US)
Congratulations! Shows like this should happen in every street of India. A3C is setting a good example to the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your wishes on behalf of FSMK and AC3:)
ReplyDeleteThis would be only a small step, with lot many hurdles to leap across. These methods on a long term won't satiate the requirements of all such prospective centres. We as a movement need your support to make this a policy, which should be implemented by the Govt.
excellent work..
ReplyDeleteYou guys are playing mentors to these kids, providing guidance; they need it most.
ReplyDeleteKudos to all of you ! :)
these kids seem to be geeks in the making, under your tutelage :)
Interesting some important news you have good. Web 2 Print and Web To Print Software
ReplyDelete