Through an agreement signed last Friday with the NGO Diksha, the Association of Volunteer Interpreters in Mijas (Aivomi) will offer English classes to Indian children from families with limited economic resources. They will do it via video conference and, most importantly, for free. 

For years, the group of interpreters has been translating for the Guardia Civil, the Police and health centres in the municipality, as well as developing programmes with schools and institutes in Mijas to practise English with the students. And now they have a new challenge ahead of them, to teach this language remotely to children in the Indian state of Rajasthan. “This will be possible thanks to the technology that makes it possible, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the volunteers, who will dedicate their time, their knowledge and their affection to these children, so that they will receive additional education in such an important language as English so they can improve their lives”,  explained Vicente García, a member of Aivomi. 

The children who will receive these computer-based classes only know Hindi, one of the two official languages in India, “so being able to speak English will open many doors for them in the future, when they are looking for a job, this will help them a lot”, said Yovanka Manolovic, president of Diksha.

The word Diksha, in fact, means the transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the student without asking for anything in return, hence the name of the NGO that Manolovic presides, “we work in India, in the area of Rajasthan with families who are practically on the streets and have no resources, so we try to offer them education above all, but also food and health support”, she added. 

On this occasion, the Foreigners' Department in Mijas intermediated between the two groups, resulting in this collaboration agreement. “We thought it was a brilliant and exciting idea”, said the councillor for the area, Mario Bravo (PP), who also assured that “Mijas Town Hall will try to collaborate in any possible way, because I believe that we are doing something good for these associations in Mijas but also for the possible beneficiaries, wherever they may be”. To conclude, Bravo also thanked and congratulated “all those people who find a moment in their lives to help others. This makes Mijas, in general, much better every day”.

 

Agreement with AFA Mijas

The NGO Diksha also signed on April 19th another collaboration agreement, on this occasion with the Mijas Association of Relatives of Alzheimer's patients (AFA Mijas), to promote different initiatives together. Aída Herrera, a member of the group, explained that “Diksha wants to explain to AFA Mijas the service they provide, both in Spain with their different charity events and child sponsorship campaigns, as well as in Rajasthan, where we help many children and families”. On the other hand, they have also considered that AFA Mijas, “through videoconferencing, could talk about the main symptoms and causes to identify, there in India, possible cases of Alzheimer's or dementia”. Herrera concluded, “it would also be a good idea to organise some inter-group connection between young people from here and young people from India so that they can get to know each other's realities and, why not, also to practise and improve their English, which is beneficial to all of them”. 

 

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