How It Started

• In elementary school, the end of the academic calendar year was always marked with a feeling of excitement or sense of dread depending on the pupils’ ranking in the class. Prior to the last day of school, the aggregated score of all pupils were tallied by the class teachers. The tradition on the final day of school was that the kids line up in an outdoor assembly, while the headmaster and the teachers would stand in front of the assembly with the class registers and a stack of report cards. The teachers would take their turn to do the roll call starting from the first grade to the 6th grade.

• When I was in 3rd grade, I remember, on this final day of school, the prince of our community stood along with the teachers and the headmaster. He lived in the city and was visiting our elementary school on this special occasion. When it came time for the teacher to read out the roll for third grade, my name was called after two other names, meaning I came in third place!

• However, I noticed this time, the first to third positions were handed prizes. The third-place student (me) received a pencil. In my recollection, the second-place student received a pencil and a pen, and the first-place student received a pen, pencil, and eraser.

• Till date, the color of the pencil (light green and white strip) has never left my mind, and I kept the pencil for a very long time because it meant a lot to me. Since then, I always thought, some day, I would want to give back to students the way the prince gave back to us. I don’t quite remember any other final school assembly from my elementary education.

• In the early 2000s, during my international assignment in the USA, I always had the desire to give back in kindness to other kids. Perhaps, replicate the impact the pencil had on my life. Subsequently, in 2020 we started the process of registering a non-profit organization. Thankfully, barring all the delays in the covid-19, Seed of Faith (SeedoF) was birthed in 2022.