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!