He saved every cent until he had money and could start studying. With help from his brother, and by working at every weekend and holiday, he began studying political science.
The days were long — he had to take three buses to get from his village to the college, leaving home by 6.30am and returning in the evening.
Every spare moment spent in the libraryHe spent every spare moment reading in the library and by the end of the year, he topped the class.
“I started dreaming bigger,” he said.
He wanted to learn English, and tried to read English newspapers in the library, but it wasn’t until he started comparing articles with similar ones in Indian newspapers that he started isolating words.
“I collected two words every day,” he said.
He drew them into a notebook, using colours and illustrations to remember their meanings.
“By the end of the month I had 60 words.”
By the end of the year he was starting to understand English. He finished the third year with the highest marks in his class. He dreamed of becoming an officer in the Indian Administrative Service.
“However, I developed an attraction for Catholic missionary life to serve the poorest of the poor people in their struggle for survival. I left my home state Kerala to join the Jesuit missionary life and moved to Bihar, a Northern Indian administrative state where I spent nine years as a Jesuit trainee helping marginalised communities. I taught children at non-formal education centres, organised motivational trainings for them, and worked with their parents to enable the education of their children.
“I left the Jesuit Seminary in 2004 to undertake full-time social work. Out of the seminary, I had no jobs, no money and nowhere to go. I came to know about the prestigious Ford Foundation Fellowship that was given to people with proven leadership qualities. It made positive changes to peoples lives and had excellent academic achievements. I was overjoyed after several rounds of shortlisting when a national selection panel approved my selection. The scholarship allowed me to study at any university in the world with full funding.”
Mansions are built one brick at a timeHe did his Masters degree in social work at Sussex University in England. Again he excelled, winning the John Simmonds Award for Outstanding Achievement.
“I then returned to India and worked for Caritas India — a social development organisation of the Catholic Church — as their regional development officer in Bihar.”
While working with Caritas, Shaji got married to Maria, who had a diploma in nursing.
In 2008, he received a research scholarship from the Newcastle University in Australia to pursue a PhD, studying how “Values Education” perspectives could be used in the non-formal education of children in India to make it more effective for the children. He completed this inter-disciplinary study in 2012 and was awarded his doctorate in March , 2013.
He returned to India to teach social work students at the Mahatma Ghandi University in Kerala.
As a student social worker in England, he had experienced the difficulties, both cultural and professional, of transition for people from overseas.
“I wanted to examine the systems and structures that facilitated that transition.”
He decided to study the issue as the subject of a PhD in social work. He was put in touch with Professor Liz Beddoe, at Auckland University, an expert in that field. Dr Allen Bartley, an expert on migration and Liz Beddoe agreed to supervise him.
“I was very privileged to be recruited as a Research Fellow in the second year of my PhD study at Auckland University. That gave me sufficient funding to pursue my second PhD.”
It was this that brought Shajimon, his wife Maria and their two children, Sreesha, 9, and Shalwin, 4, to New Zealand.
He believes it was his destiny to come to Gisborne, after a friend alerted him about the position as social work lecturer at EIT. He loves the place, the job, the students and his colleagues.
“We are absolutely enjoying our lives here,” he says.
Maria is doing her degree in nursing at EIT. Sreesha is excelling at her new school and Shalwin is loving EIT’s early learning childcare centre. Meanwhile, Shaji is still working on his second doctorate.
He says the doctorate is a journey.
“It’s the process I enjoy. I tell my students that if they persevere there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Oceans are formed by drops of water, mansions are built one brick at a time and great books are written letter by letter. We can achieve the impossible by making some progress every day.”
