Schools for India

Visit to Manipur

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:28:33 +0530

We visited Manipur on the Invitation of Bikram Singh, who is the national cyclist and also the winner of 2^nd ICR on ECR championship.

As you land in Manipur, you can’t resist the temptation of calling it the heaven on earth. With beautiful hills and surrounding valley’s it is called as “a flower on lofty heights”.

The state is divided in to nine districts, and we visited two districts, the Imphal East and Bishnapur. Along with the local community groups, we inspected prospective school sites in 5 places.

The whole trip was organized by Kamban Seityajeet, social worker. Since it is a border state, and under many cross country influences, the presence of the underground militants and the para military forces, life is far from normal. With more than 16 hours of power cut making virtually any industry to function normally a near impossibility.

There are many schools and the literacy rate is very high, but all the activities are governed by the underground groups. We could see the school children participating in protest rallies during school time.

All the community leaders whom We have met wanted to change the situation to bring quality education and new industries which will provide employment.

We agreed to work together and we will help them to set up the following: Nine district sporting clubs, One environmental Center of Excellence in Imphal, and work towards setting up a community radio station.

We also looked at creating the project plan for building the schools in Imphal and Bishnapur to start with,

We are looking forward to acquire around 100 members to support the project in Manipur.

Schools for India- Google Group-

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:16:30 +0530

For More discussions and updates please join the google group.

http://groups.google.co.in/group/schoolsforindia?hl=en&lnk=srg

Villages of India- Wikipedia Project

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:37:23 +0530

We are planning to create the template in Wikipedia, so that anyone can upload the information about the villages in India.

If you have the details of villages in your district please send the same to us.

Membership Drive Started for 2008-2009

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:43:42 +0530

The Schools for India membership drive has been started with the aim of recruiting 3000 members across India.

For more information write to contactus@schoolsforindia.org

Schools for India - Europe

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:22:04 +0530

We are now looking for interested people who can work with us in Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands,Italy and Sweden.

We are targetting to set up the legal entities in these countries in 2008.

If you would like to be part of the organization in your country please get in touch with us.

contactus@schoolsforindia.org

Meeting with Puducherry Education Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:44:35 +0530

We met up with the Puducherry Education Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan, and his team few weeks back and gave an overview of what we are planning to do.

The Minister was very keen and supportive of the proposal to build the best in class schools.

Hon. Minister showed keen interest and asked us to start looking at prospective sites at which we can execute the project.

Schools for India team was very happy and encouraged by the support being provided by the Puducherry government.

We promised to start the initiative soon in Puduvai.

As part of the initital engagement, we are planning to set up the cycling clubs and also conduct the National MTB championships with support from the Puduvai cycling association in January 2008.

3D Animation completed

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:35:04 +0530

We have completed the complete walkthrough of the pilot school. The walkthrough shows how the school building and class rooms will look when it is built.

This walkthorugh will be published in the website soon, as the size is too large we are trying to see how this can be hosted.

In case if you want to see this please send us an e-mail or comment here so that we can send the CD by post.

The animation walkthrough was created by Tekton India Private Limited.

Schools for India, starts Operations in Punjab.

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:04:12 +0530

Schools for India-Moga District

Schools for India, is starting operations in Moga district in Punjab. Based on the preliminary meetings with the local district entities, the following action plan has been initiated.

The village community of Chugha Kalan, will create the local Educational Trust, to support Schools for India.

Schools for India will appoint one Community Champion from the village to liaise between the district community and Schools for India

The Village community will apply for FM radio station license this year.

The village has also agreed to lease 20 acres of land for building the school. Schools for India, is planning to start construction in 2009 onwards.

The meeting was held last week with Baba Manohar Singh, Gurdeep Singh-Sarpanch Chugha Khurd, Gurbachan Singh-Sarpanch Chugha Kalan.

As part of the community interaction, schools for India will open 18 district cycling clubs in Punjab in January 2008.

Schools for India-Adyar River Expedition

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:03:41 +0530

We are planning to row down the adyar river in May. ( total distance 42 KM)

Why are we doing this: This is part of the “For the sake of education” sporting events.

This expedition will have more to it: We are planning to make the first commercial boating in the rivier, meaning we are planning to buy and sell flowers during the event.

We are looking at 12 to 24 insane people to row down on 25^th May-26^th May from the origin to sea, starting around 3 PM and end at night. We are also looking at some lights and fireworks to show up in the bridges.

At the end of the event we are expecting some exposure to our project and also bring home the point that we can use this river! For commercial purposes, including going to office by boat.

We are scouting around for partners and if your mates are willing to dirty their shirts, we can have a chat sometime.

Schools for India- District Owner:

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:01:16 +0530

Definition:

The district owner is a person who will manage end to end all the School projects in the allocated district. The person will report to the Regional director of Schools for India Trust. The position is voluntary one and it could be full time or part time based on the need. The district owner shall be the member of Schools for India Trust for that particular district as well.

Typically a District owner would be handling 9 to 10 school projects for his/her district.Here is the quick guide to what a district owner would be doing:

Step 1: Secondary search: First identify the list of blocks and villages in your district, and collect the basic data like: Population, Number of Schools, and Literacy rate, NGO’s working in the district.

For data template please send an e mail to venkatesh_chandru@schoolsforindia.org.Once you complete the secondary search and the data should be sent to venkatesh_chandru@schoolsforindia.org for evaluation and further to be uploaded in the site www.villagesofindia.org

Typically this will take 4 to 6 weeks based on your schedule, and you can be anywhere in the world. You can dig in to various websites or ask your contact in the district to go to the district office to get the data and send that to you.

Step 2: Visit to the district:

Once you have the data you can go and visit the various key towns in the district to make sure that you understand how things are, and take pictures, this will be uploaded in the district pages. Please have a look at www.villagesofindia.org to have an idea about the content coverage.

Step 3: Initiate NGO contact:

Find out the various NGO’s working in the district and send introductory note about Schools for India and your intention to work with them. Find out the most suitable local agency which is willing to work with you.

Step 4: Initiate community Radio Program:

As per the strategy to reach out to the local community, we would be starting the local community radio stations in partnership with local communities, the CR stations would be owned by the community with initial support from Schools for India. For more details on CR program send mail to Rashmi_kuruvilla@schoolsforindia.org with copy to venkatesh_chandru@schoolsforindia.org

Step 5: Initiate Schools for India- Cycling Club-<< your District>>

We have adopted Cycling as a sport to identify our projects across the country. As part of this strategy to reach out to various communities through Sports, you have to open the cycling club in your district and you would be the owner for this activity as well. The legal documentation and other details for opening the club would be sent by email to you once you send an email to your regional Director/Trustee. For more details mail to sudhakar_govindarajan@schoolsforindia.org with copy to venkatesh_chandru@schoolsforindia.org

Step 6: Primary research:

The primary research involves door to door survey of the district, for every village. The process for Primary research is available in the document How to conduct primary research in your district. This document is available through email and would be published in the website soon.

The primary research findings will be published in the website and the exact locations in which we would be building and running the schools would be finalized based on this survey and research.

Step 7: Fund management:

The district owner is now responsible for creating the project plan and funding plan. To work closely with other Schools for India, entities, local and global businesses and ensure that the funding for the project is obtained.

Step 8: Ongoing Project management and support:

The district owner would be responsible for building and running the schools in that district by providing the ongoing project management support.

The district owner is also responsible for managing the expectations of members globally who are attached to that particular district.A district owner is expected to complete step 1 to 7 in 12 to 16 month’s time frame.

Villages of India project, the village Portal

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:35:53 +0530

Villages of India project, the village Portal: www.villagesofindia.org
19^th March 2007

The domain name registration for the village portal completed and the Home page is up and running.

We are planning to upload the proposed site map by end of April 2007.

The development effort is going to be open to all those who wants to contribute across the world.

The key functionalities are:

My Village: Origin-History-Geography-Population-Village Map

Projects: School-Water-Road-Community Center-

Businesses: Green Pages- for Agri-businesses-Yellow pages-BPO roadmap

Community: Member Directory-Who is who

Health: Rare Blood groups-Genetic disorders-History of disabilities

Special children corner: Directory-Initiatives

Finance: Bank-Micro Credit-Rural Stock Exchange

Links: Agricultural portal-The School portal-the local weather portal

Events: Birthdays-Remembrances-Weddings-News

Community Radio program guide:

To provide comprehensive program guide on the programs, content creation initiatives

Places: Tourist attraction-Places of Worship

My Projects- School-College-Others

My contributions- Volunteer work-mentoring

How this site will look:

Phase I: Static data of the list of all the villages in India-2007

Phase II: Creating the Database-2007

Phase III: Build the functionalities-2007 to 2009

Phase IV: Provide sample data for 200 villages- 2008

Phase V: Community editing and managing Module for all data- 2009

Live with 600,000 villages’ data: December 2010

If you would like to be part of this project please contact venkatesh_chandru@schoolsforindia.org

The Cycle Race-Update 2

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:33:57 +0530

ICR on ECR- The international Cycle Race on East Coast Road:
19^th January 2007

The first international race was conducted by Schools for India in Chennai on 19^th January 2007.

The race categories are:

01.     Amateur Men- 140 KM
02.     Amateur Women- 70 KM
03.     MTB- 70 KM
04.     College Rally Men: 6 KM
05.     College Rally Women: 6 KM
06.     School Rally Boys: 6 KM
07.     School Rally Girls: 6 KM

For the winner details and pictures visit www.schoolsforindia.org

The race was started at 7 AM and was concluded at 5 PM. The prize distribution ceremony was conducted in the evening.

The prizes were distributed by Mr.K.R.Vishwanathan, Director In charge, TNRDC.

Mr.V.N Singh Mr.Dattatreya officiated the event with technical support from the TNCA.

Total Prize money worth of more than 15 Lakhs distributed to various category winners.

ICR on ECR- The prize distribution Ceremony in Patiala, Panjab.
3^rd March 2007.

Mr.J.S.Grewal, the Hony. Gen Sec of the Cycling Federation of India, conducted the prize distribution ceremony for the Punjab and Rajasthan winners at Patiala.

Cycle Rally update

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 15:41:43 +0530

This week we are covering the status update on the Cycle Rally and the Pilot Project.

ICR ON ECR

Chennai- November 2006:

Update on the International Cycle Rally:

The approvals:

Good news: We are working with TNRDC-the road management agency, and Cycle Federation of India to finalize the logistics. They are very keen and offered to provide all the support. The Cycle federation of India will supervise the event.

The Date: 19^th January 2007

The details:

We are planning to conduct the event in three days, first the school student’s rally which will be conducted on 16^th January 2007. This is a warm up to the big event. We are planning to conduct this in a major stadium in Chennai. We are expecting around 500 students to participate. The second is the Press conference which will happen during this time to provide the overview on our project. The Cycle Rally for Students, Amateurs and Professionals will happen on 19^th Jan 2007 (Chennai to Pondycherry-150 KM). The prize distribution and cultural show will happen on 20^th Jan 2007.

The pilot Update

Chennai- November 2006:

The land identification is still in progress. We would like to ensure that the site meets all the criteria. We are planning to commence the detailed building interior drawings so that we can provide the 3D walkthrough for the class rooms by end of this year.

The Survey Experience

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:17:17 +0530

When we wanted to find out how to do the survey, there were many options. We created the following process for the survey. We divided the whole survey in to three phases: 01. The secondary research 02. The primary Research 03. Analysis and decision making Before we started we did a through research and gathered the data like, how many villages are there in Vandavasi, what is the road and transport facilities available, how many schools are there, number of male/female/Children/literate in each village.

We hired a professional agency to do this job, and once they brought these data what we did was to plot the data on a large A0 size map of Vandavasi Block.

Once we did that, we were able to decide the primary survey schedule; we initially calculated that we can do two to three villages per day per person. Later we had to revise this, as some of the villages are pretty large.

The kick off was peaceful as the team from Chennai met up with the volunteers and gave an overview on what we are up to and we went through the questionnaire one by one.

We ensured that they understood the purpose and intent of each question.

We had a team of 21 volunteers and 2 supervisors.

The first village was near Vandavasi called Mummuni and we also went to the local school. By the time we finished the door to door survey it was evening and we had to leave.

The volunteers, primarily from Vandavasi area were too eager from the beginning, and really bonded well during the course of the survey.

It took us almost 25 days to go through the 212 villages, and midway we had to modify the questionnaire to fill some gaps.

Some of the findings are really useful, people are very receptive, and they have good awareness about sending their children to school.

Some of them travel more than 7 to 10 KM to go to school, and we have decided that we will run a three shift school to ensure that the children can come and learn even if they are working in the field.

And providing bus facility will greatly improve the number of children enrolling.

In my next update I will talk about our experience in conducting the Street Play.

Survey Completed for Vandavasi

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 14:46:10 +0530

It was a memorable occasion for the Schools for India Team as the first ever survey of the Vandavasi Block in Thiruvannamalai District, Tamilnadu was completed on 7th August 2006.

A team of 23 Volunteers went around 212 villages over 3 weeks to gather door to door information.

We gathered the list of Children below 15 years including Physically Challenged and Special Children.

We also completed the study of all the Schools in each of these villages and gathered the data regarding their infrastructure.

The high level data analysis provides excellent insight in to the needs of the people in Vandavasi.

Typically some of the children travel up to 8 KM to go to school. There is considerable awareness about the need to go to school and the main reasons for not going to school are poverty and lack of accessible facilities.

We will publish the results of the survey soon in our website. We thank the Volunteers and Schools for India team who worked tirelessly to accomplish this massive task.

Now we are all set to identify the land for our Pilot school.