Sitting under the banyan tree in Roldih

23 years and going strong. Years ago, when the Internet in India was just still new and you could access it either on a slow dialup modem or using the grand 64kpbs leased line from the office, I chanced upon a post by someone on an environment BBS about sustainable farming and I replied. That started off a seemingly odd friendship with a man who was 20 years older, a wee bit crazy, passionate about social change and an avid traveler who ran a non-government organization (NGO) called Dakshinayan in the tribal belt of (then) Bihar (and now Jharkhand).

What started off as a “let’s see what this is all about” journey about twenty three years ago with Dakshinayan and Siddharth Sanyal still continues strong. And I am now sitting under a hundred year old banyan tree in the compound donated by the local community to the school project that Dakshinayan runs in the Roldih village of Godda district in Jharkhand, writing this.

While I have been engaged with Dakshinayan through the years via my personal time or financial contributions. But in the last decade due to various, I was not able to visit the school. Finally I decided to take a week off from work and make the trip. And am I glad that I did.

Local economy improvement brings in new jobs and raises salaries. When I reached Roldih on the 11^th of Nov 2019, it was as if I had time travelled forward in time. The whole environment around the villages seem to have fast forwarded. There is a frenzy of house construction driven by the PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna) scheme, the village roads are being built, there is electricity in all the villages, the local shops seem to be bigger and better stocked, govt schools now have real teachers (thanks to the mandatory biometric based attendance) and more people own bikes (and some with cars !!). Something unheard of 10 years ago. I remember the time when we heard a motorbike passing near the project campus, we all peeked out to see who it was, now no one cares – there are so many.

The formal education sector still lacks quality and needs support schooling that will instill knowledge, awareness and life skills to kids. While there are more schools with teachers but the quality of education in this part of the country is still abysmally poor. There are enough class 7-9 students who don’t even know how to read and write even at grade 2-3 levels !! Moreover the rote based learning imparted by the schools does not impart any life skills or awareness about the outside world that these students have to engage with a rapidly increasing speed as the economy grows. Even basic knowledge of working English gives these kids a level playing field when dealing with the govt. machinery and outsiders who use bits of English to intimidate them. On the other hand, enrollment in the govt schooling system gives the kids access to all the facilities being provided and ultimately a formal school passing certificate.

So Dakshinayan has moved from a more formal schooling role to a “bridge education” role. Most of the students that attend the school early in the morning also attend the govt school, which, realizing the value of what we teach has even changed their timings to enable kids to attend both the schools. This allows kids to not just get access to the govt system but also get quality education readying them for the challenges that they will face as they grow up.

We also want to make sure that the students and their parents see real value as well as have skin in the game, hence we ask them to pay a small amount of Rs. 750/- per year.

People lack skills in the new jobs and opportunities that are emerging. Growth of the local economy has brought with it jobs but the local community is not ready for that yet. We were trying to get our local electric supply fixed and I realized that the local electric line man Shiv Pravesh seemed to be throwing a bunch of random electrical terms which made no sense to me, so I got talking with him and realized that he was working as a contractor to the local electric supply company with no formal training. No wonder we were getting 440v instead of 240v and bulbs kept popping off !! This is just one example and I am sure there are many more Shiv Praveshs who need to be trained on vocational skills so that the opportunities that the growing economy is throwing at them don’t get wasted. This is another area we are starting to explore in partnership with the local community.

Development Education program and our funding ethos. At Dakshinayan we have a strong belief that sustainable social change is a slow journey that can take decades of persistent partnership with communities and there is no one size fits all. Unfortunately this goes against the key drivers of mainstream corporate and institutional funding which pushes for rapid results and scale aligned to their business models. Hence we rely on non-institutional sources of funding which includes individual donors coupled with a unique program called “Development Education” where we seek volunteers to work on the project and pay a small fee to cover their expenses as well as partly fund our activities in return for gaining a unique perspective on social development in India.

Over the last few years the inflow of volunteers to the project has diminished, forcing us to reach out to additional individual donors to keep this journey moving forward especially when the need for the community is more than ever before. And this is where you come in.

We are seeking partnerships with likeminded individuals to help join Siddharth, Manas, me and few others to fund & drive this social transformation effort by sponsoring 5-10 students on a monthly basis as well as engaging closely with us.

Monthly expense for 10 students is Rs. 8000/- and covers books, teachers salaries, food, infrastructure, transportation etc. (averaged over each student). Our goal is to teach upwards of 75 kids in 2020 and have committed our resources to fund about half that number.

If you can sponsor 5-10 students for a year by funding us Rs. 4000-8000/- pm on a recurring basis, it will really mean a lot to the community. Any other contributions monetarily or otherwise are also welcome.

Update (2nd Dec 2019) – Thanks to all who have supported us, we are slowly inching closer to our goal but are still Rs. 300,000/- (US$ 4200) short. So please pass the word around.

Update (5th Jan 2020) – We are now closer to our goal but our still Rs. 1,50,000/- short.

Feel free to reach us at:   

Siddharth Sanyal – sanyalsid@gmail.com / +91 73186 43634

Rahul Bedi – rahulbedi2002@gmail.com / +91 98451 49915

Manas Das – manasdas1@gmail.com / +91 98800 18652