"I want to be a doctor"

After much delay, my first day of Spoken English finally arrived. Emily and I were supposed to split the class in half, each of us having 30 students. However, on the morning of our first day, she fell sick and I had to take on all 60 students with Emily’s co-teacher, Ms. Amitaben.

I was nervous walking into the classroom and afraid that 60 students would not give a woot about what I was saying. As Amita and I walked in all of the students got up from their benches as said, “Good Morning Teacher”, I greeted them back and told them to sit down.

I had bought a bag full of miniature Jolly Ranchers and decided for the first day of class I would have each color represent a question. Each student would receive and candy and they would stand up, tell me their name, what color they had, and answer a question that pertained to the color. Majority of the girls happened to have the “Cherry” flavor and the question that was continuously repeated was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I had heard often of the boys wanting to be engineers and doctors but one rarely knew what a girl wanted to become. When I asked one student, Manisha, the question she simply said, “I want to be a doctor” This answer was the most common amongst the girls and every time I heard it I became happier with their aspiration.
However, I grew up in America where becoming a doctor as a woman was not as difficult as becoming a doctor in India. Most of these girls will be married by the time they should be ready for college and the other half may not have the support or grades to succeed in this dream. It became a realization for me that an Indian woman in America does not face the same challenges as a woman in India. One of the main reasons I decided to join the Nanubhai team was mainly to help develop women’s initiatives in Gujarat. As a woman what could I do to inspire these young women to continue on their path to become doctors, engineers, teachers or any other field they would like to go into? The answer quickly came to me as I watched them all file out of the classroom. Empower them.