Ongoing Projects

Update on Schools

“58 years of Independence and they haven’t seen the Indian flag ever?”, I ask.
Sounds unbelievable!! But here we are in a village called Tarapur a few miles away from Chandikhol in Orissa, India. On Aug 15th 2005, Mom headed to the village, grabbed a branch of a tree and hoisted the Indian flag for the very first time since 1947. The Little Twinkle School was inaugurated with 80 children from the village. Such is the story of the latest Little Twinkle School opened since 2003.

Almost 2 years later it feels untrue and surreal at times – 9 schools and approx 270 children in Little Twinkle Schools!!

In December 2004 during my trip to India, 3 news schools were opened in Kusunpur, Takua Theng and Sadakpur – villages, again, in remote areas in Orissa, India. Some of the kids in these schools are so poor that they live in makeshift houses under a tree.
Now imagine their state in July 2005 when most of the country was flooded due to incessant rains. Clothes, cooking utensils and shelter in a nearby school were provided by Little Twinkle until the rain water subsided.

I have been posed with an interesting situation in this project.
As you know, I have been targeting areas for Little Twinkle schools that are in remote villages with no government run schools in the vicinity. Recently the Government of Orissa State opened an elementary school called ‘Angadbadi’ in the village of Manapur --- one of the villages which has a Little Twinkle school. My first reaction was to move my resources to another area – move this school to another remote area since kids in this village could now go to the government school and were taken care of. Moreover, I did not want any hassles with the corrupt government officials of a developing country.

In December 2004, during my visit to Manapur, I was surrounded by the villagers requesting me not to shutdown the Little Twinkle School despite the ‘angadbadi’ having opened next door. It bewildered me. On further investigation I realized, due to the high degree of corruption; the teacher assigned to this ‘angadbadi’ showed up intermittently ~ sometimes just once a month. Basically, the children were neglected and were not learning. In one hand I have always consciously tried to keep off the government’s radar and on the other hand I am inspired by these villagers who despite being illiterate themselves are eager to get their children educated such that they can have a better life! Do I take on the government?