HCF – Human Common Factor

I have always believed that there are some basic traits of a human being that are common no matter which corner of the globe the person resides. I refer to that as Human Common Factor (HCF). The Corona virus episode that we are all in right now, has brought out some of those things. Since I work in a global setting where colleagues are spread across the world, I happened to know some of the things happening around the world closely. During one of the meetings, some things came up as a very warm gestures across the world. These examples may not be big enough to be put up in Newspaper or headlines of the TV channels, but it certainly shows that people basically care, and it was indeed very good to know. Caring is indeed universal. Care is certainly one of the HCF.

Some examples…..

From UK: ....."He knocked on the door out of the blue yesterday, asking if we had any more work for him because his projects are being cancelled due to isolation concerns, but also people's lack of appetite to spend savings at the moment. …. Anyway, he's now stitched me up good & proper & is starting to convert our garage on Monday". This was about a small business owner into renovating houses/buildings.  

From US: ...."On a smaller scale, we told our housekeeper to stay home but are still paying her during this and have opted to donate our (closed) health club dues so they can keep paying their staff."

From Poland: ...."Yes, there are a lot of self-employed people that struggle these days. My wife takes Italian lessons for example. She thought to stop it for now, but I encouraged her to keep doing it via Skype since her teacher is doing it for living and losing these lessons would have impact."

From China: ...."Many shops/Restaurants here in Beijing are labeled as "Sell” but will take time to make the deal happen." This was said with grave concern for them.

While the above gestures and more has been clearly good intentioned reactions to the situation and genuine caring of the fellow human being, I have an example with myself where I saw that the solution that I have provided came to use during the times of "stay home" for the students. I certainly did not have the current situation in mind when I came out with this solution but irrespective of my intensions, it looks like it came to good use.

 I had started "Auducation" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.auducation )with completely different intension. Auducation is mobile platform on Android which is intended to include the prescribed language textbooks of major Indian Education boards in audio. This is meant for students between 8th to 12th standard. Since the literature-based textbook are full of stories and poems, I started it by getting it narrated by teachers/artists so that they can bring out the emotions appropriately while narrating the textbooks. It is an aid to the students where they can just listen to their lessons and learn in their mobile phone. I noticed that for the first two weeks of this month, the downloads increased significantly when compared to the rate of downloads that I am used to see. Also, when I noticed the review of the students on Google Play, quite a few of the students gave me less rating only because I have not added more language textbooks yet. During the times when the students are asked to stay away from schools, Auducation app is indeed helping them. ....and yes, both the mobile app and the audio textbooks on Auducation are given away free.

Although not related to Corona and its impact...... a small bunch of volunteers who have been creating audio materials for the visually challenged for some years reached out to me if I can fund them for some titles. I felt that this is a good opportunity for me to do a bit. Just to make sure both the students of my target section and the visually challenged individuals are included, we came to an agreement that I will be funding them to produce 3 audio textbooks in Kannada language. I have not met them in person, nor did I have any video conferencing too. This has happened over the phone and email. Even though my intention and people working for the visually challenged individuals were different we could find a common ground from where we could find something to do in the current Corona scenario. A lot of people say that working remotely (or learning remotely in my case) could be more and more common so the solution that I provided can possibly be used more by the students. Either way, I am glad to be of some help.

Stay safe.....