It now has 60 children and the average age of the children is coming down as we manage to reach children at the right age to enter school! We still have a number of children who can be found selling postcards or flowers on the streets to tourists, and we do our best to get them to spend increasing amounts of time in school. Many of these children
also have learning difficulties or may be differently abled. We accept them all and let them progress through the classes at a pace that suits them, focusing more on their skill development than which class exams they pass.
The residential children come from far away villages and since they live with us full time, it is much easier to have a more concentrated impact on their education. We ourselves are often astonished how far the word has spread about this project, and face the awful situation every year of having to turn away more children than we can take in due to our extremely limited space. So painful is it that I am deliberately absent on these days and get my local team mates to meet the children. We currently have 40 children but have a waiting list of more than 85 kids. They learn traditional Sanskrit subjects as well as things like computer studies, English, art and singing (they love singing!). Unsurprisingly they are cricket mad and are very excited to be playing a cricket match against the evening school children in the autumn to help raise funds to pay for the after school teachers’ salaries. You can find out more about it on
JustGiving.com/fundraising/teacherstoday . The after-school project which teaches all core subjects and also includes our fabulous Computer Centre which is funded by the DEW Association (thanks to Tara Mckearney’s (Class of 1988) amazing mother Pat Mckearney).
This school is open 365 days a year with classes six days a week and art and craft activities twice a week. We also introduced classical dance classes twice a week which has unsurprisingly been hugely popular, and we were very proud that our girls were invited to perform on International Women’s day at BHU, one of the top universities in the country. We now have 167 children registered for this part of our school and typically expect between 50 and 110 children to turn up on any given day. These children are not brought by parents but by word of mouth from other children. We want them to love to learn and encourage a free unpressured atmosphere in which they can learn. We place great emphasis on art, not just in the evening school, but throughout our projects as a means of free expression and developing their capacity to imagine which is in itself an important life skill. Almost all the teachers are women providing great role models for the children, and many of them have been educated by us along the way. Another lovely thing about this part of the project is that most of the teachers use their very minimal salary to fund their own further education, bringing things full circle.
There are so many Old Cornelians involved with our project here, sometimes by sponsoring a child on a monthly basis, sending boxes of second hand clothes, doing fundraising events, volunteering their valuable time, collecting books/toys or even sharing a celebration in their family by providing a special meal for the children here. Many have helped spread the word allowing us to find funding enabling us to reach more children and give them the chance they deserve.
The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2017
THERE ARE SO MANY OC’S
INVOLVED WITH OUR PROJECT HERE...
However, balancing the costs and funding is a daily struggle. I especially want to mention my friends Ann Marie Jackson (Class of 1988), Kathy King (Class of 1988) (and all their relatives!), Tara Twyman (née Sinha, Class of 2000), Kim Bible, An Vermeir (Class of1988), Veronica Cloke Browne (née Cloke, Class of 1988), Jessamyn Cheam-Gwynne (née Cheam, Class of 1988) and Anne Marie Wardlaw (née Jose, Class of 1988) without whom we would never be where we are today (forgive me if someone has been omitted but I also didn't want to put your names without asking you first). The list goes on!
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Now we are in our next phase where we reach out into new rural areas in India.
Oxford University conducted a study in 2010 with UN criteria and data determining that eight states in India were as poor as 25 African Nations. Quite alarmingly, a state called Madhya Pradesh with 70 million inhabitants was deemed as impoverished as the war torn Congo. This is one of the two areas that we are expanding into as I write. The first is near Mussorie, Uttarkhand. This is a joint venture with a friend of mine called Anu Kumar who I studied Sanskrit with many years ago and who went on to be a Sanskrit Professor at the University of Copenhagen. She has now retired and, like me, wants to do something to make the world a better place to live in. A building on her land in these mountains is being converted into a school house with three classrooms. It is designed to provide an accessible education to children who are too small to walk the 10/12 kms to the nearest school on the mountain roads. We
believe the costs of converting the building are around £1,200 and running costs for the first year will be around £1,000 increasing obviously as numbers increase. This part of the project is set in an ancient protected forest which we want to protect as an eco environmental zone. India has lost 80% ofits trees since Independence in 1949 and is suffering with countless natural disasters.
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