you
in all humilitywanting to share with you my journey of the last six years
in the field of service and education and i'm not a trained academic neither am i
veteran social worker i was twenty six years in the corporate world trying to make organizations profitable and then in two thousand and three
i started parikrma humanityfoundation from my kitchen table the first thing that we did was walk through the slums you know by the way there are two million people
in bangalore who live in eight hundred slums we couldn't go to all of the slums but we tried to
to the parents tried to convince them about sending their children to school we played with the children
and came back home really tired exhausted but with images of bright faces twinkling eyes and
went to sleep we were all excited to start but the numbers
two hundred million children between four to fourteen that should be going to school but do not
hundred million children who go to school but can not read one hundred and twenty five million who can not do basic
we also heard that two hundred and fifty billionindian rupees was dedicated for government schooling
one out of four teachers not going to school at all the entire academic year those numbers were absolutely mind boggling overwhelming
and we were constantly asked when will you start how many schools will you start how many children will you get how are you going to scale how are you going to replicate
it was very difficult not to get scared not to get daunted but we dug our heels and said we 're not in the number game
we want to take one child at a time and take the child right through school
to college and get them prepared for better living a high value job
so we started parikrma the first parikrma school started in a slum where there were seventy thousand people living below the
we started our first school was on a rooftop of a building inside the slums a second story building only second story building inside the slums
and that rooftop did not have
hundred and sixty five children indianacademic year begins in june so june it rains so many a
times all of us would be huddled under the tin roof waiting for the rain to stop my god what a bonding exercise that was
and all of us that were under that roof are still here together
then came the second school the third school the fourth school and a junior college in six years now
we have four schools one junior college one thousand one hundred children coming from twenty eight slums and four orphanages
dream is
send each of these kids get them prepared to live to
but also to live peacefullycontented in this conflictridden chaotic globalized world
now when you talk global you have to talk english and so all our schools are english medium schools
but they know there is this myth that children from the slums can not speak english well no one in their family has spoken english
no one in their generation has spoken english but how wrong it is
and
the
writing
i
that girl that you saw her father sells flowers on the roadside and this little boy has been coming to school for five years but isn't it strange that little boys all
the world love fast bikes he hasn't seen one he hasn't ridden one of course but he has done a lot of research through
you know when we started with our english medium schools we also decided to adopt the best
also this myth that parents from the slums are not interested in their children going to school they'd much rather
them to work that's absolute hogwash all parents all over the world want their children to lead a better life than themselves
but they need to believe that change is possible
we have eighty percent attendance for all our parents teachers meeting sometimes it's even one hundred percent much more than many privileged schools
have started to attend it's very interesting when we started our school the parents would give thumbprints in the attendance register
now they have started writing their signature the children have taught them it's amazing how much children can teach
we have a few months ago actually late last year we had a few mothers who came to us and said you know we want to learn how to read and write can you teach us so we started
for our parents for our mothers we had twenty five mothers who came regularly after school to study we want to continue with this program and extend it to all our other schools
we have to find a job for them so that they don't regress we have about three fathers who have been trained to cook
have taught them nutritionhygiene we have helped them set up the kitchen and now they are supplying food to all our children they do a very good job because
children are eating their food but most importantly this is the first time they have got respect and they feel that they are doing something worthwhile
more than ninety percent of our non teaching staff are all parents and extended families we've started many programs just to make sure that the child comes to school
one of the twenty eight children from all privilege schools best schools in the country
i got a lot of friends and i felt that my english has improved a lot going there and
now
of those before that
and
and i wouldn't want to go to
it
and ask me
this girl was working as a maid before she came to school and today she wants to be a
our children are doing brilliantly in sports they are really excelling there is an inter school
from one hundred and forty best schools in the city we've got the best school award for three years successively
and our children are coming back home with bag full of medals with lots of admirers and friends
last year there were a couple of kids from elite schools that came to ask for admissions in our school we also have our very own dream team
why is this happening why is this confidence is it the exposure we have professors from mit berkeley stanford indianinstitute of science who come and teach our children
lots of scientific formulas experiments much beyond the classroom art music are considered therapy and mediums of expression
we also believe that it's the content that is more important it is
not the infrastructure not the toilets not the libraries but it is what actually happens in this school that is more important
creating an environment of learning of inquiry of exploration is what is true education
when we started parikrma we had no idea which direction we were taking we didn't hire mckinsey to do a business plan
but we know for sure that what we want to do today is take one child at a time not get bogged with numbers
and actually see the child complete the circle of life and unleash his total potential
we do not believe in scale because we believe in quality and scale and numbers will automatically happen
we have corporates that have stood behind us and we are able to now open more schools but we began with the idea of one child at a time
this is five year old parusharam he was begging by a bus stop a few years ago
got picked up and is now in an orphanage has been coming to school for the last four and a half months he 's in
stories in english of the thirsty crow of the crocodile and of the giraffe and if you ask him what he likes to do he
i like sleeping i like eating i like playing and if you ask him what he wants to do he will say i want to horsing now horsing is going for a horse ride so
comes to my office every day he comes for a tummy rub because he believes that will give me luck when i started parikrma i
i've learned so much from them love compassionimagination and such creativity
is parikrma with a simple beginning but a long way to go i promise you parusharam will speak in the ted conference a few years from now
thank
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