Here is the full transcript of Vedika Agarwal’s talk titled “The Transformative Power of Belonging” at TEDxYouth@KCHigh 2023 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Power of Belonging
What is the first word you learn in a foreign language? Go ahead, think about it. It may be hello, goodbye, thank you, please. For me, it was a Tamil word, “Vandi.”
Even though I was born and brought up in Chennai, I grew up in a privileged bubble of my own. I didn’t speak a word of Tamil, the native language of my birthplace, and yet foreign to me. I had such a deep sense of belonging to my hometown that once I graduated college, I actually moved back to Chennai instead of pursuing a career anywhere else in the world. And like any other fresher, I was excited and hopeful to begin my purposeful journey.
When I was volunteering in college, I had met hundreds of marginalized children from extremely difficult backgrounds. And this experience burst that bubble of privilege, and 18-year-old me figured out that working in low-income communities was my life’s purpose. So once I moved back to Chennai, I applied for a role in a public school where I was assigned as the class teacher to 25 second graders.
On the first day, 7-year-old Swati came running up to me, repeatedly whispering this word, “Vandi.” And before I could even Google it, she had made it clear. Within moments, my feet were covered in Swati’s vomit.
A Challenging Beginning
This is how my journey began. On the very first day itself, I realized I did not belong. And with time, things did not seem to be getting better.
My kids and I struggled to understand one another, and the community considered me an alien.
Every day, I would arrive at school hopeful, and I would leave defeated. So when a friend asked me why I was doing this to myself, I was stumped.
Stumped not because I didn’t have an answer, but because the answer came to me immediately. My kids were evidently happy to see me every morning. Their beaming smiles, sloppy kisses, tight hugs were all too real for me.
When I was with them, the world outside our classroom ceased to exist. Their love had finally made me feel like I belonged.
A Lifelong Commitment
And once I felt it, that sense of belonging transformed me. So much so that what was meant to be a two-year-long commitment at the school has now become a lifelong one. Almost a decade later, I am still working with those seven-year-olds who are now teenagers in the very same community that once considered me an alien.
It is this community that I call my home away from home, where I spend every waking hour with my team at Yein Udaan, providing love, care, attention, and safety to 200 magical children in our learning centers, with the hope that they, too, feel like they belong. Research shows that when someone has a deep sense of belonging, they are happier and achieve more. They are less judged, more confident, and hence take more risks to pursue their goals.
This sense of fulfillment instead boosts their sense of belonging, and the cycle goes on. Children, too, have been found to be happier and perform better at school when they feel like they belong. Believing that their friends and teachers are looking out for them encourages children to try new things and give their best.
Have you noticed this cause and effect before? I know I have, in the lives of Madhesh and Sharmika.
Madhesh’s Story
Madhesh was neglected at home growing up, so much so that he was enrolled in school directly in the second grade, and only because his mother was pregnant with her fifth child and could no longer handle Madhesh’s energy at home. She needed Madhesh to be someone else’s problem for a while.
At the age of seven, Madhesh did not know how to hold a pencil or a book. He was so behind his peers that he consistently acted out of his insecurities. As a young teacher, I wanted to change Madhesh’s reality. So I showered Madhesh with love, care, and attention, making him feel safe in our classroom.
And seeing him yearn for that attention, I even made him our class’s cleanliness leader. It was now Madhesh’s responsibility to ensure that our class was clean at all times and that his friends washed their hands before and after their midday meals.
Soon enough, things began to change. Madhesh no longer ran around the class disturbing everyone. He took immense pride in being a leader, in being wanted.
Madhesh’s Transformation
Madhesh began to learn. Today, Madhesh is in the 11th grade, at the top of his class, and everyone’s favorite Anna at Yein Udaan, being our oldest child, both in age and in time with us. He has such a deep sense of belonging to his community that he proactively volunteers as a teacher with his younger peers and even participates in outreach activities.
Madhesh’s friend, Sharmika, never belonged in her own home. She spent her childhood growing up on the streets because her alcoholic father would come home drunk, abuse her mother, and then lock both mother and daughter out of the house, be it day or night.
Sharmika hated being at home so much that she would come directly to our learning center from school, where she was this ever-joyous, bubbly young girl accessing every creative opportunity that she could. When we shared this with Sharmika’s mother at a parent-teacher conference, her mother was confused. Apparently, Sharmika had become so quiet at home that her family could barely get a word or two out of her.
She would come back home late every evening and go to sleep, whether inside or outside her house, depending on her father’s mood. At the tender age of 13, Sharmika had begun to seem like a zombie to her mother.
So were we talking about the same child? We decided to address this at our regular feeling circles at Yein Udaan. And over time, Sharmika began to open up that she feared her father and felt angry towards her helpless mother.
Sharmika did not believe that her parents loved her. One beat her, and the other failed to protect her. We took these powerful learnings and shared them back with Sharmika’s parents.
Over many months of counseling, Sharmika’s father slowly began to understand why it was important for his daughter to feel like she belonged in her own home. Today, Sharmika’s parents care for her, give her attention, love her. And this has transformed her overall behavior.
Now, Sharmika enjoys being at home, spending time with her parents, sharing stories from her life at school and otherwise. She helps out in household chores, and even celebrates festivals with her family.
The Impact of Belonging
These are not the stories of Madhesh and Sharmika alone. Almost every family that we work with at Yein Udaan faces similar struggles of neglect and abuse. Often making me wonder if our children would have happier childhoods if their parents first had a sense of belonging.
Since COVID, there has been an increase in the number of North Indian families living in our community. And word has spread that there is a Hindi-speaking teacher around to help. So from working with just two North Indian children, we now work with 14.
But this story is not about the children. It is about one of the mothers, Anu. Anu was married off as a child bride to a much older man with whom she felt no connection. She lived in the village with their three small children while he worked in the big city. So when Anu’s husband asked them to move to Chennai and live with him, Anu was thrilled.
Anu’s Struggle
She felt that she would finally belong in her husband’s life. Two years later, Anu now realizes how wrong she was. Her husband still continues to neglect his family, treating home simply as a place to eat and sleep. He is very abusive towards Anu and their three small children. Unable to bear this any longer, Anu called me late one night, sobbing inconsolably. We had to meet.
The next morning, she shared with me that she felt alone, that she felt like nobody cared for her, and that it was time to say goodbye. I spent that entire morning with Anu, showing her that she had someone in me. But once she calmed down, I realized I may not always be accessible or approachable to her.
So I brought this to my team’s attention, and we came up with a plan. We brought together all the North Indian mothers of our program in order to create a peer support group.
These women now had a safe space and each other to call their own, to feel seen, heard, and cared for. In creating that sense of belonging for Anu, we managed to create that very same sense in every other Hindi-speaking mother in our program. And in doing so, we have now safeguarded not only Anu’s three children from losing their mother, but all 14 of our North Indian learners.
Because every single woman in that program struggles with her belonging in this new place with this different culture and foreign language. Vedika, Madhesh, Sharmika, Anu, all very diverse individuals with different stories to tell. And yet, all our lives have been transformed simply by belonging.
My kids’ love for me reassured me that my purpose was real and that I was on the right path. The attention I paid to Madhesh made him feel seen when his own mother failed to see him. And today, he’s on his way to successfully graduating school.
Once Sharmika’s father made home a safe space for his daughter, an entire family’s future changed for the better. And when Anu realized that she was no longer alone, that a whole community of women cared for her, a life was saved.
The Universal Need for Belonging
So could it be that these ideas of love, care, attention, and safety are not just intangible concepts, but are indeed deep-rooted, universal needs within each of us that transcend class, caste, income, and status? And is it possible that each of us has the magical power to reach out and make another feel like they belong with the smallest of gestures that sometimes have the biggest impact?
Could each of us sitting here today find the Madhesh, Sharmika, Anu in our lives, connect with them, and create a sense of belonging? And in doing so, would we be serving a purpose, reuniting a family, or even saving a life? What would the world start looking like if people felt loved, cared for, and safe?
At Yein Udaan, we’re on a mission to answer these questions for a whole community of thousands of families. And as I continue to embark on this journey with us, I ask you, are you with me? Yein Udaan, irukeen la ma? Thank you.
