Hari Hari, the Engineer...and is it Raining Rupees?

Hari is our government engineer who approves plans for new government buildings, including our school. Here is he, really working hard, with the government team and our Naandi Foundation project manager, Mr. Bhartee (white shirt, seated). Mr. Bhartee will oversee the construction of the Rainbow School's new, permanent school building.

Hari is a fan of the Naandi Foundation's school construction because Naandi is everywhere in Hyderabad! They are building 300 schools around the city of Hyderabad with funding from the Dell Foundation. Since Hari is so impressed with the Naandi team, he told us about a Central Government pot of money that may be available to help make ends meet for the construction budget. Woo hoo! He's going to apply for the funds (only government people can apply) this week.

And with a huge grin, I report that the engineers were FUN, yet very professional. They made sure Mr. Bhartee were looked after while waiting for Hari, the tea was just fantastic, and everyone was friendly and wanted to talk about the school. It was the best visit to a bureaucrats office yet!

Hari came to visit the site the next day, he walked all around Mastan Nagar with Mr. Bhartee and I. Then we all tasted the school lunch (so many chilis, the kids love them). Here they are in action!

It was raining rupees all week. Just this Saturday, our local politician (see the blog entry "Politics') who is named Mr. Reddy - like everyone else in Hyderabad - said during the routine meeting of the school principals of this area (called a mandal) that he has some rupees! They were given to him by the Central Government specifically for school facilities construction. We signed up to apply for that moolah in a New Delhi minute. Usha Madam and I went to meet him on Friday, but he was out so I will go solo on Tuesday. Usha Madam was pulled out for an extensive period of "political poll work" which means she is registering voters and organizing voting stations. This is for the local elections. Poor Usha Madam!

Back to the engineers, with luck, we'll have the plans approved in a few days. A structural drawing/sketch up of the three-story building is under construction. I am doing it so it is a pretty bad sketch up so far!

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MobilesForGood: EDU

Together with the students, parents, and teaching team, we did it. Ten years of the Rainbow Primary School. Our school is a government-funded, local-language (Telugu) school that serves 230 children every day absolutely free. We celebrated by opening an after-school center last month with the best education NGO in the world, Pratham. For the past five years, I've worked on research projects and helped NGOs that have an interest in developing mobile tools for learning. Globally, there are three populations of students that need to close the education gap. 1. 52 million children globally not in school at all. Most are out of school for one or more of these reasons: conflict/no public services (fragile state), lack of legal papers, migrants, or they are female. Migration is a big issue in our area around the Rainbow School. 2. 200 million children globally are in school, but suffer from poor in-class teaching. These students cannot read at grade level. The most common reason

Gray Matters Capital and the Rockdale Foundation

While all is very well at the Rainbow School, I'll pause to highlight a "sister organization" supporting budget private schools in India. Gray Matters Capital and the Rockdale Foundation have an annual symposium in Hyderabad, called "Enterprising Schools." Buddies of mine from here in Palo Alto, the Hewlett Foundation and IDEO, are heading out there next week. More info is on www.enterprisingschools.com My IDEO fellas organized a whole list of very low-cost teaching aide ideas to present at the symposium. Ideas like using old newpapers to teach literacy. They put the list up on the website under "STEAL THIS IDEA" - click here for the list! (in pdf form) BEST WISHES for a successful symposium, I miss you all in Hyderabad!

On Monday, August 18, I was so happy to return to see the Rainbow School. The teachers have made a plan to shift from Telugu to English medium. My friend at Pratham, one of the largest education NGOs -- serving 5 million children in South Asia and Africa -- agreed to help my teachers. My co-partner, Kalpana, is taking the lead on a facilities upgrade. She will oversee an upgrade to the preschool and main building. Kalpana and I have found donors in India and the United States. The children were sharp, completely up on their marks. The teachers were creative, driven, relentless. More to come!

Rainbow Primary School

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