Rainbow Primary School

Dr. Kalam , Former President of India (2002 to 2007) met with our three top 4th Standard students and Usha Rani today. He gave them this advice: "Work hard, dream big." Thank you, Dr. Kalam!

Here is a fantastic picture from today. Our kids decided to help with the construction, even the little ones! By the end of the day, the walls were over a meter tall.

We had another good parents meeting today, in the new building! No major issues this time and the parents are coming around on the "no stick" rule. There is a general feeling of goodwill throughout the community. We are happy to be a small part of their lives. This month and next we plan to work on finding more professional NGO partners. We are particularly interested in NGOs with expertise in health. We made our financial plans for 2008 and (exciting!) we are almost ready to offer opportunities for donations to a mini-endowment for the school. This little fund will ensure consistent support for teaching aides and teacher salaries in the decades to come. For more on our construction, the full list of activities is here . And our workplan for the construction for the next two months can be found here .

http://prathamap.aissindia.com/ This is Sunitha with Pratham, a huge NGO here in India. She let me follow her team around on Monday. Here she is showing me the low-cost science kit for government schools, there are over a dozen experiments in there! On Monday, we went out to a village where her team assessed the learning levels of children at the local primary school. Then they surveyed twenty households about their perceptions of the quality of education in the village. The team was very thorough and the data was assembled with great clarity. The end result of this work is the ASER survey, the Annual Status of Education Report. You can see the 2006 survey here: http://www.pratham.org/aser2006.php In the Ranga Reddy District, the Rainbow Schools home district, they are working in over 800 villages to assess the schools. Post-survey, Pratham does work with volunteers, paid a little monthly stipend, to help children learn reading and writing after school hours. This is their famous ...

This is a long video, but very amusing and fun to see Indian construction standards. This was our last piece of major construction work!

Last year, the Hewlett Foundation president suggested in his annual report that non-profits start an "on-line marketplace" for giving that had simple, standard pieces of information. He suggested: "1) A description of the organization’s goals and strategies for achieving them. For example, an organization dedicated to eliminating polio in a developing country would describe the scope of the problem and how it plans to tackle the problem. (How many children does it plan to vaccinate, and what steps are necessary to do this?) 2) Indicators to track the organization’s progress toward its goals and a description of what progress has been achieved. (How many vaccinations have actually been administered?) 3) Evidence of actual impact, where available, and lessons learned. (In the long run, did polio decline in the country? In the short run, what obstacles were encountered, and how were they surmounted?) 4) Reviews of the organization by its beneficiaries and other stakeholde...

Today they held quarterly tests, here is what first standard's test looks like. GOOD LUCK, STUDENTS!

The parents very particular, they have high standards! They insist we only hire teachers (junior teachers) who graduated from high school. That is hard to find! Only 1/3 of India's children pass on to secondary school, and most of those cannot pass the final exams. So, despite being illiterate for the most part, the parents want only the most qualified teachers. The second demand from the parents is for strict discipline; this means corporal punishment. Back in 2005, on the very first day of school, the parents requested we use corporal punishment. No, no, no is always our answer. Even after two+ years, the parents are completely convinced we need to use "the stick." It comes up at EVERY parents' meeting. Finally, one parent took matters into his own hands. He brought us a huge bunch of palm tree branches, stripped down into lovely "sticks," he was more than happy to provide us with loads of sticks for the next few years. We all had a good laugh!...

These girls are the Alpha Girls. They never miss a day of school, and rank at the top of the fifth standard class. The intensity of their attachment to their teachers and the school is remarkable. They stay and watch our teacher's meetings, soaking in every bit of the interaction. They have even formed a student committee, chasing down students who are tardy or skipping class. (We tried making a parent committee, but they all work during school hours!) We are so lucky to have these girls! Their future plans are all to become teachers. I will enjoy watching them over the coming years.

We are dealing with some paperwork. 1) We requested three more junior teachers, "Vidya Volunteers," 1,000/mos salaries as directed by the district level bureaucrat on 2 August 2007. Paperwork is into the lower level bureaucrat, working up to the district level. (1 and 1/2 months and counting) 2) A Utilization Study for the work done to date on the building is underway at the district level. I'm organizing coordination between our contractors and the government engineers. (Only 1 week and counting!) 3) 4 March 2007, we received additional land for a preschool but we need paperwork from an adjoining neighbor, a state-level bureaucracy called the A.P. Tourism Department, to hand this land to our bureaucrat at the lower level. (6 months and counting) 4) We requested government funding for the preschool (called an Early Childhood Education Center, ECEC) from the lower level bureaucrat. (2 months and counting) 5) We requested a government nurse be reinstated (ours was transf...

First, here is a full timeline on the building . It explains a lot of why we were SO delayed. Second, we found this mask near the site and the owners gladly gave it to us for the school. It is from Kerala; Apa Rao is showing us how to wear it. Last, look here for pictures of the latest stage of the building construction.

See this link for a PPP on the vision for the school! Vision for the Rainbow School!

Ismail and I visited the Vada Prasad house today (unannounced, as per our standard operating procedures). He looks just fantastic, greeted us with giggles and belly laughs. Vada is responsive, clear-eyed, much more able to direct his limbs; he even claps his hands! His mom is doing a great job. She required a baby buggy to get him to therapy, so Ismail will deliver one on Monday. The partner organization at the Rainbow School is the Anokhi Aasha School. Reema Gupta and her professional staff give free physical therapy and educational support to our special needs students. www.anokiaaasha.org Thank you, Rema! Here is Vada in action... what a crazy, good year for Vada.

Today was another great day. Progress on the building, the kids are so wonderful and really settled in, and the community doesn't want to kill us (today). So I had to celebrate with this picture of our first, second, and third standard kids. Thank you, Ismail, for taking this shot.

After two years, we finally got the best meeting ever... the managers (Usha and myself) listened. We delegated out to the teachers some planning items. Most important, the feedback loop from teachers to management is firmly, firmly established. Usha Madam clearly enjoys her role as "listener" and "facilitator." I am so proud!!

The exams held last April had a big surprise. We got an "A" average for the school, over 1/3 of the students got an "A" grade, and only 10% failed outright. (These were all students who came less than 100 days out of the school year of 220 days) All those high A's (90%+) really carried the school into the overall "A" average. THANK YOU to those A students and their outrageously dedicated teachers! It turns out, they were all the students who ALSO attended over 200 days of school. We also found out from the data that we are doing great in recruiting the bulk of the most needy children, but we are missing students who are "Scheduled Caste." My thinking is they need special outreach programs to get them into the school. Our operating mode of "no fees" remains essential to reaching students like these.

The MV Foundation started 20 years ago in this state (Andhra Pradesh) to combat child labor. They now work in six states. I hope they plan to expand to every state. They work with minimal fuss, maximum understanding of the ground realities in slum and village India, keep low overhead, and produce results. Here is a picture of the parents, community leaders (called "Gram Panchayats"), youth committee members, and two MV Foundation staffers (far right) at Khanapur village. The man standing on the right edge of the group is Mallesh, he is the MV Foundation staff member dedicated to the Rainbow School back in Masthan Nagar. He took me to Khanapur to see a functioning, effective community-MV Foundation partnership. Khanapur is one hour east of Hyderabad(see map here ). In our slum, we are really struggling with building community relations. This visit gave me great hope. The original mission for the Khanapur Community - MV Foundation partnership was to focus on a handful ...

This is Anita from WIM talking about her work in the slums in Hyderabad. We are lucky to have WIM on our team! They bring milk and eggs to the kids every Sunday.

The Rainbow School's plot for the new building is now outlined on Google maps. Check this out!

Here is a funny video of one of our engineer and our contractor explaining how the "Great Wall of Mastan Nagar" was constructed. A piece of video on our rather sad and pathetic temporary home, "the shed," is at the end. The landlady raised the rent again on that place. I think she should pay us just to be there!

The new school year is starting off strong. There are eighty-four new students, three new teachers, and an entire new staff of helpers (except for Beeb the cook, of course). Here is a picture of our students who won "Best Attendance." From the left: Santosh, Baleshawri, and Suman. They got to see Spiderman at the IMAX and eat candy and ice cream until they could eat no more. At the building site all is well. The team constructed “the Great Wall of Mastan Nagar,” our fourteen foot high retaining wall. The contractor starts pouring the foundation tomorrow. I also visited an amazing Naandi-built government school in central Hyderabad to see what ours will look like (except much, much smaller) post-construction. I am very jealous of this school: trees, garden, open spaces, classrooms the size of our entire first floor, and a computer room! Back at the school, after planning and many good ideas, Usha Madam has come up with a “scheme” to help integrate the slowest learne...

Plot Boundary Documents, The Rainbow School The link above is to a PDF file of the original papers showing the boundaries of the plot exactly behind "The Rainbow School" plot and the school's plot itself. They correspond to those "Kadi Stones" shown in the previous video. You can see the little dots on the lines right above the word "Village Boundary" that show the placement of the stones. You can see corresponding marks on the last page, the most recent boundary marks for the school's plot. (I asked for a re-draw of the plot last January, just to be sure we were all squared up.) It is so very cool to have a window into this typically windowless paperwork system. You see, we currently have a claim against these very clear boundary marks. However, the credit for the first e-mailed document I ever received from the Indian government goes to the District Rural Development Agency, the best run district office in Ranga Reddy. They all have com...

The video here shows the boundary lines for the plot. We were waiting (another two hour wait) for other parties to show up (they never did) in the current boundary dispute. So Bhartee and I started messing around with our boundary footage shot over a week ago. Cheers! Leigh Anne

This is our Naandi Engineering team leader, Mr. Bhartee. He is a structural engineer who has built hundreds of public use facilities around India, including over a dozen schools in Hyderabad. He is explaining the land boundaries. Isn't he cute?

The Indian schools run on a June to early April calendar (April/ May are the hottest times of the year). Our new school years starts tomorrow! To help recruit students, the school held three events. First, we held an ice cream party (thanks to an anonymous donor for the cash for the ice cream). How happy do these kids look? They have bellies full of ice cream, yummy. Second, a great volunteer team from the India office of multinational firm came by and spent all day in the sweating hot, hot heat with the kids. They brought a fabulous lunch, mutton biryani...score! This pre-start of school visit was a great recruiting tool, for sure. Third, we held one of our usual rallies this morning. The teachers and kids march through all the lanes in the slum, beating a drum, shouting go to school slogans while carrying a banner for the school. It is a real deal in the slum, everyone comes out to watch. Tomorrow, enrollment opens for the school. We already have about 40 kids lined up to ...

Dear Reader: My apologies for ranting on and on regarding the slow progress on the school building. Two years, sixty-four meetings with government officials, three full stacks of paperwork, and $50,000 dollars later: we have final lift-off. Here are pictures of the foundation of the building going into the ground. Thank you for your patience. And I am proud to say the Naandi contruction team is doing a superb job. ( www.naandi.org/UpdateArchive/strongFoundation.asp ) Leigh Anne PS: Its raining right now, just in time to cure the cement laid down today. PPS: I will thank the funders of this building when they let me or when the building is completed. Whichever comes first.

Most Indian government schools lack electricity and running water. The meeting pictures on the left is exactly on those issues: electricity and water. Indian government schools also usually lack any budget for cleaning. In one case, a local school near us was given 80 rs a week for a cleaner. The cleaner told the heamistress would only clean one bathroom for that kind of money, so the school shut and locked the remaining bathrooms. The Rainbow School is a bit luckier, the new building will be an excellent facility. However, electricity and the operating parameter of very little budget for cleaning remains. What the government can give is so little, private funds are required to really get the job done. ( http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1085677&CatID=19 for more information on utilities and government schools) Municipal Garbage Pick-Up This quarter, our regular staff found new help from the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH). MCH is responsible for garbag...

We took our little artist Venkatesh (see post "Police-Community Relations") to the local museum. Campbell and Manjula, his sister, came, too. It was a blast! And the last picture is his latest creation. We gave it to the Commissioner for our local municipal board (more on the commissioner next post). Venkatesh says this is what our new school building will look like:

This is the article I wrote for an expat group here in Hyderabad. It is long, but comprehensive! Naga’s little toddler head bob bob bobs along when he runs on his thin, dusty legs. He is two and a half feet tall with a crew cut and wide, wild, intelligent eyes. Naga was my first friend in the Mastan Nagar slum. He is independent, climbs like a monkey, and runs fast. I spend too much time chasing him. His mother, Nagama, is always working. Her head is down, over the cooking or over the wash. She never knows where Naga has run to, yet he keeps to an imaginary a fifteen-foot boundary that stretches between his hut, his school, and the flat space in the dirt road in front of the school where his two older brothers play cricket. I know Naga and three hundred of his fellow slum children through my work with the Rainbow Primary School. This is how our friendship began. This little bit of our story here ends with some lessons learned and ways others can help. In September 2005, a re...

Even though we are still in the cow shed, we just received an award from the Center for Organizational Development for excellence in education. The Lions Club of Jubilee Hills put us on their “Permanent Projects” list! The SSA decided to “adopt” one of our special needs children, including paying the bills for their medical care. (See post, "Almost a Cinderella Story") A previous post (see post, "Happy New Year! A Big Donation from ISH") was on the unexpected joy of received a donation from the International School of Hyderabad for our new school building. Finally, the Chirec School, another private school nearby, is in the process of “adopting” us. Imagine what we can do in a real building!! This is what it is like to be a mature school, rather than a start up. We really are moving into the second phase. Construction is actually, really started. We have organization, management (working on that), and resources. It is a real school! Every morning, I woul...

It is pretty funny that the school is still in the cow shed. But even with all the physical challenges, the school just won “Best School” among the cluster of our local schools (Madhapur, Kothaguda, and Chanda Naitana). I wish I could say that all the schools in our cluster were doing OK, but they are really struggling. They do not have a chance to compete with the Rainbow School because they do not have the resources that the Rainbow School has. However, there is more to this than just lack of resources. The other week I spent a long day at the Mandal Education Office. A small gathering of bright and shiny teachers was there working in the mandal’s teacher resource room. The room has some chairs, a blackboard, and a table. There are also some old textbooks (paperback) stacked against the wall. There are several big windows with good views of the surrounding country. But there is nothing in the way of “teacher resources.” No charts to take, no stacks of chalk, no blocks or globe...