Rainbow Primary School

This flier is from our local government Revenue officer, she is fantastic! She is supporting the MV Foundation's work to get all children to school, including in Masthan Nagar. It says that it is illegal to hire children under the age of 15 for work, and those who do will be prosecuted. Thank you MV Foundation!

To quote "The Anchorman," Stay Classy, Masthan Nagar! First there is new building, and someday we will have paint on the walls! And the mid-day meal is now delivered by the Naandi Foundation, I had lunch there on Wednesday it was fantastic (spicy). Now we have the maximum number of teachers the government will pay for (five) plus private teachers, so all the kids are happy and well tended to. This is a long way from our first days on the dirt floor in the bamboo shed in 2005. We classy now! Then Pavan came! He's amazing. He's the only certified Montessori teacher in INDIA for birth to teens. Others have certification for other ages, he's the only one for all ages. I found him on-line. I was searching for Montessori tools in India. www.pinkpentagon.com NOTE: Shameless Plug Below He came up on the right hand side as a Google adwords advertisement (thank you, Google). RESUME BLOG POST Thanks to an anonymous donor, we were able to order a ton of Montessori to...

WOW. In less than one week, the government bureaucracy delivered all four points from the DC. 1) We have electricity at the school. 2) Usha Madam gets to stay at the Masthan Nagar headmistress post, she will not be transfered back to her previous post at our sister school. 3) 2.4 laks for the building on Plot #1 is in writing in our file, sitting at the SSA Engineer's office, ready for disbursement when we give him the bills. (Thank you, Raja.) 4) After one year, we received confirmation from the Joint Collector's office that the boundaries for Plot #2 are secure. We can start to move forward on the preschool!! Here was the text message today from my new favorite government officer, the Second Joint Collector. "I got the report from the RDO regarding plot no.2. I will process it today." ... he is very good.

We got the call, the DC wanted to meet at 3 PM on Wednesday. Ismail and I ran to the district office, met with everyone at the SSA office, then tracked down the DEO to walk over to the DCs office. The Joint Collector was there, the DC sat us all down, went over each of the four points and BOOM. We got everything. I'm not shocked. Praveen Prakash is very good. After six months, I think he trusts us. Usha stays at Masthan Nagar another year, we got a new electricity connection, 2.4 laks more for the building fund (the toilet block was expensive, $2,000 U.S.!) and the Joint Collector will come and see about Plot #2 on Saturday at 11:00 AM. NEXT UP? The DC hasn't seen the last of me. See http://rangareddyeducationgroup.blogspot.com We are two months before a ban on transferring bureaucrats (due to Indian election laws, forbids any transfers one year before elections). We have NO SSA officer to run the SSA program for the district. We request the DC to get us a new SSA of...

Here is what I gave the collector last night: Here is what happened: The DC's office went on tour of a far, far away part of the district, so the usual Thursday 11:00 AM hearing in the conference hall never happened. I came back at 5:00 PM, sat my usual seat in the waiting area, and chatted with the usual sweet-natured, competent front office staff. There was a crowd by the front door, which is not unusual. I spoke with SSA staff waiting to discuss the latest with the DC, then I made a new friend who is a bureaucrat with a tax office. At 5:05, the union boss for the office workers showed up. He demanded the front-office staff leave! As per their union rules, the work is 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, but the DC works his staff until 9:00/10:00 PM. The union boss 1) either thinks this makes the rest of the office look bad or 2) thinks someone is actually unhappy at the DC's office. The little fellows of the front office shuffled all the paperwork into bundles for the overnight safe...

We have enjoyed 2008 very much. There is one - big - item left on our to-do list. There is a plot of land, 182 sq yards, we received permission to build on in April 2007. We even got money for the construction (from the government). We've waited 10 months for permission to build. Why? This land is next door to land that belongs to a State ministry (tourism). Our district collector may solve the paperwork stalemate tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed! Here is the video on the whole story.

2008 is "The Year of Enormous Change" for the school. The building will be ready on 1 February 2008. We're a moving on uppp, to the sky.... to a deluxe school building in the skyyyyy!!! Many, many, many, many, many thanks to our new contractor, Vijay Kumar (Usha Madam's brother-in-law). Here he is with the Naandi team, including Bhartee, our Naandi engineer. We are only one month behind our original schedule. (Our old contractor walked off the job in October 2007, long story and it wasn't really anyone's fault.) THANK YOU VIJAY! THANK YOU VIJAY! THANK YOU VIJAY! THANK YOU VIJAY! THANK YOU VIJAY! Classes moved into the first floor already. The poojas took place on 2 January 2008: a "Christian Pooja" and the "Hindu Pooja." Prayers were said in many languages and coconuts were cracked to scare all evil spirits away Here is Kalpana teacher cracking her coconut at the Hindu pooja. That same day, the Naandi Foundation started delivery of...