{"id":23,"date":"2019-11-17T07:28:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T07:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/?p=23"},"modified":"2020-01-06T10:44:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T05:14:45","slug":"sitting-under-the-banyan-tree-in-roldih","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/2019\/11\/17\/sitting-under-the-banyan-tree-in-roldih\/","title":{"rendered":"Sitting under the banyan tree in Roldih"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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23 years and going strong<\/strong>. Years ago, when the Internet in India\nwas just still new and you could access it either on a slow dialup modem or\nusing the grand 64kpbs leased line from the office, I chanced upon a post by\nsomeone on an environment BBS about sustainable farming and I replied. That\nstarted off a seemingly odd friendship with a man who was 20 years older, a wee\nbit crazy, passionate about social change and an avid traveler who ran a\nnon-government organization (NGO) called Dakshinayan in the tribal belt of (then)\nBihar (and now Jharkhand).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What started off as a \u201clet\u2019s see what this is all about\u201d\njourney about twenty three years ago with Dakshinayan and Siddharth Sanyal\nstill continues strong. And I am now sitting under a hundred year old banyan\ntree in the compound donated by the local community to the school project that\nDakshinayan runs in the Roldih village of Godda district in Jharkhand, writing\nthis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I have been engaged with Dakshinayan through the years\nvia my personal time or financial contributions. But in the last decade due to\nvarious, I was not able to visit the school. Finally I decided to take a week\noff from work and make the trip. And am I glad that I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the many houses under construction in Roldih<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Local economy improvement brings in new\njobs and raises salaries.<\/strong> When I reached Roldih on the 11th<\/sup> of\nNov 2019, it was as if I had time travelled forward in time. The whole\nenvironment around the villages seem to have fast forwarded. There is a frenzy\nof house construction driven by the PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna) scheme,\nthe village roads are being built, there is electricity in all the villages,\nthe local shops seem to be bigger and better stocked, govt schools now have\nreal teachers (thanks to the mandatory biometric based attendance) and more\npeople own bikes (and some with cars !!). Something unheard of 10 years ago. I\nremember the time when we heard a motorbike passing near the project campus, we\nall peeked out to see who it was, now no one cares \u2013 there are so many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formal education sector still lacks quality and needs support\nschooling that will instill knowledge, awareness and life skills to kids. <\/strong>While\nthere are more schools with teachers but the quality of education in this part\nof the country is still abysmally poor. There are enough class 7-9 students who\ndon\u2019t even know how to read and write even at grade 2-3 levels !! Moreover the\nrote based learning imparted by the\nschools does not impart any life skills or awareness about the outside world\nthat these students have to engage with a rapidly increasing speed as the\neconomy grows. Even basic knowledge of working English gives these kids a level\nplaying field when dealing with the govt. machinery and outsiders who use bits\nof English to intimidate them. On the other hand, enrollment in the govt schooling\nsystem gives the kids access to all the facilities being provided and\nultimately a formal school passing certificate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dakshinayan school morning assembly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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So Dakshinayan has\nmoved from a more formal schooling role to a \u201cbridge education\u201d role. Most of\nthe students that attend the school early in the morning also attend the govt\nschool, which, realizing the value of what we teach has even changed their\ntimings to enable kids to attend both the schools. This allows kids to not just\nget access to the govt system but also get quality education readying them for\nthe challenges that they will face as they grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the Dakshinayan schools buildings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We\nalso want to make sure that the students and their parents see real value as\nwell as have skin in the game, hence we ask them to pay a small amount of Rs.\n750\/- per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People lack skills in the new jobs and opportunities that are emerging.\n<\/strong>Growth of the local economy has brought with it jobs but the local\ncommunity is not ready for that yet. We were trying to get our local electric\nsupply fixed and I realized that the local electric line man Shiv Pravesh\nseemed to be throwing a bunch of random electrical terms which made no sense to\nme, so I got talking with him and realized that he was working as a contractor\nto the local electric supply company with no formal training. No wonder we were\ngetting 440v instead of 240v and bulbs kept popping off !! This is just one\nexample and I am sure there are many more Shiv Praveshs who need to be trained\non vocational skills so that the opportunities that the growing economy is\nthrowing at them don\u2019t get wasted. This is another area we are starting to\nexplore in partnership with the local community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paharia tribal village of Cheo where Dakshinayan Development Education program started<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Development Education program and our funding ethos<\/strong>. At Dakshinayan\nwe have a strong belief that sustainable social change is a slow journey that\ncan take decades of persistent partnership with communities and there is no one\nsize fits all. Unfortunately this goes against the key drivers of mainstream\ncorporate and institutional funding which pushes for rapid results and scale\naligned to their business models. Hence we rely on non-institutional sources of\nfunding which includes individual donors coupled with a unique program called \u201cDevelopment Education\u201d<\/strong> where we seek\nvolunteers to work on the project and pay a small fee to cover their expenses\nas well as partly fund our activities in return for gaining a unique\nperspective on social development in India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last few years the\ninflow of volunteers to the project has diminished, forcing us to reach out to\nadditional individual donors to keep this journey moving forward especially\nwhen the need for the community is more than ever before. And this is where you\ncome in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update (2nd Dec 2019)<\/strong> – 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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Feel free to reach us at:    <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siddharth Sanyal – sanyalsid@gmail.com<\/a> \/ +91 73186 43634<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahul Bedi – rahulbedi2002@gmail.com<\/a> \/ +91 98451 49915<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manas Das – manasdas1@gmail.com<\/a> \/ +91 98800 18652<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sitting under the banyan tree in Roldih”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bedi.co.in\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}