March through April 2011 Newsletter | Pardada Pardadi Educational Society

parada pardadi educational society

March through April 2011 Newsletter

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What's New

Talk of a CHANGE

A decade of perseverance and hard work can bring out a transformational CHANGE. In 10 years, a PPES girl has been emboldened to make her own decisions. One of those decisions is to continue her higher studies COME WHATEVER MAY. From now on, a PPES girl need not rely only on a handcraft to earn an income since there is no demand for a developed profession around where she lives. She has a CHOICE. Once she graduates grade 10, the PPES girl will be trained into taking up higher studies or learning handcraft vocations from scratch. Higher studies will enable her to take up various professions even outside of her village, in a developed city.

From April 2011 onwards, the academics at the PPES are being strongly supplemented with training in English language and computer programming. The focus on high end vocations and leadership and personality development programs at the school will help the students to make break through decisions and take up high professions. Besides, every PPES graduate will have knowledge of computers and fluency in speaking English language.

A Community Toilet in Madargate

We shared the news of building a community toilet in the last PPES Newsletter. In two months since then, PPES took up the task of refurbishing a concrete toilet structure around the area of Madargate in Anoopshahr. Due to lack of proper hygienic facilities the locals had no choice but to prefer the use of open fields to the toilets.

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The fully refurbished toilets by PPES were inaugurated on March 11. These have been divided into two sections. One of the sections has a set of five toilets and a bathroom for females. The other has a set of six toilets and a bathroom for males. To ensure the toilets don?t go back to lying in a state of shambles, PPES has employed a team of three employees from the Madargate area with responsibilities of regular cleaning and maintaining of the toilets. The task that lies ahead now is to construct a boundary wall around. There are also ideas in the pipe line for clean drinking water, play area for the kids, and solar lighting. The goal is to transform the most discriminated and so called low caste area of Madargate into a community hub for health and hygiene.

A Look at the Library

One look at the PPES library and you can tell how much of a FUN space it is fast becoming for the students. A PPES past volunteer, Melanie Closs, and her writer friend Emily Culliton fundraised for the PPES library through an innovative holiday party fundraiser. Their close friends and family put in an amount that they could donate, and that gathered into a strong support for purchasing new shelves for the PPES library. While Emily and Melanie took up the initiative far off in the US, it was Babli, the librarian, and Naomi, a PPES volunteer, who did up the library at the school. Well, it all started with the work of Leigh Anne &her grandparents, Lindsay Johnson, Jacobi Wade, and Emma O Hagan that have made the library look the way it looks today

Melanie is also the Education Director of an eco theatre company, the Green Theatre Collective. She and the Executive Director of the company, Hal Fickett, are planning to come in to the PPES in 2012 and develop a sustainable theatre program there. The theatre is one of the most creative media of spreading awareness, and by having a PPES theatre group; we foresee a deep social change at the village level

Our Partner Friend

The Action for Support of Deprived Children ( ASED) and the Pardada Pardadi Educational Societys (PPES) association is the herald of a new hope and progressive action for the students at the PPES. The ASED is a Swiss humanitarian organization that supports and ensures subsistence and education to the poorest children and their families across the world. The ASED is sponsoring the construction of six new classrooms, a set of toilets, a well equipped computer lab, and an English Lab. Under project Sustainable Development through Education and Skills Enhancement brought by the ASED, the PPES would become a school imparting academic education with an extra edge.

With the skills development training and education that a PPES girl now receives, she would be a strong candidate for a job that requires her to speak fluent English and work on computers, besides pursuing high end vocations like nursing, fashion designing, media, and computer programming among others

It happened at the School

Different Strokes

How ready are we to experience and absorb the hard hitting contrasts of the socioeconomic backgrounds and disparities? PPES gives out that opportunity to young students from different parts of the world early on in their lives. In March, PPES hosted two back to back excursions for the Mc Donough and the Derryfield schools from the east coast of the US.

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Students of these schools, who live in a natural oblivion to the paraphernalia that make up a rural life in India, could not tell what a visit to PPES would be like until they saw it with their own eyes. PPES girls, always thrilled to show their new friends around, had a lot of activities in store for them. Playing a local sport new to the guest friends, coloring, and dancing to a mix of Indian and Western songs, were some highlights of the trips. The experience of visiting the families and villages of the PPES girls were special moments that the PPES guests took back with them

Color me Blue, Red, Purple

Like every year, the PPES had vibrant colors splashed on its ground on the festival of Holi. This is one of the gorgeous days when the PPES girls turn into a "mission squad" coloring the PPES. The revelry moves through the day with mouth watering sweets that the PPES staff and students dig in.

A Day for the Woman

When you have a school that teaches gender equality to its girls, it is quite a hard task to decide on what to do on the womans day. So, we invited Ms. Kopal Verma, Business Development Head for VLCC (Indias largest wellness and beauty brand) as the chief guest for the day.

Ms. Verma instantly formed a strong connection with the PPES girls, as she had been born in a farmer's family in Uttar Pradesh too. The girls were inspired by her story. She stressed on the importance of education and hard work, as that have led her to be where she is today. To add some literal meaning to the March 8 celebrations, the male teachers and staff members donned the hat of a chef. The food was worth finger licking. There were outdoor games played between the teachers and students too.

The PPES Team

From New York to India and straight to PPES

A native New Yorker, Naomi Dobrowolski had spent the year after graduation working as an educator in her hometowns oldest historic house. She had long wanted to do volunteer work overseas, and, when friends suggested that she consider India as a destination, she began her search for well-established organizations in underserved communities. Through the help of iPartner - a philanthropic organization that supports Pardada Pardadi - she found such an organization in Pardada Pardadi

My time at Pardada Pardadi has been devoted to organizing, cataloging, and shelving books donated to the library. I hope that these books help the students who have made my stay a joy-filled one and to all future PPES volunteers, I would say, explore the world even while living in Anupshahr.

From a PPES Graduate to a Teacher

Hemlatas is one of the BIG Indian families with 3 brothers and 3 sisters. She is fondly called Hema at Pardada Pardadi. Hema was almost married away as a child when she was barely 13 yrs old. The PPES counseled her parents and persuaded them to send Hema to school instead. Her education at the school has motivated her parents to send Hemlatas younger sisters to the PPES too. Since she graduated from PPES in 2007, she took up a course in computers and joined the PPES as an employee in the Administration Department. Today, she is a teacher of computers. It was easy for Hema to effortlessly switch from Admin to teaching. Computers are one of Hemlatas fortes. Her father has a small farmland in village Karanpur. It is role models like Hemlata that have motivated families in Karanpur to send their girls to the PPES. It is little wonder then that Karanpur is the village with the highest number of students coming in to the PPES

Hemlata got married to in May 2010 at age 22. Her husband runs a gardening business in the city of Delhi. Her wedding was attended in full show by the PPES staff and volunteers. By now, PPES volunteers who are not from India have gotten used to shaking a leg in a Bollywood song

In this edition
What's New
It happened at the School
The PPES Team

Quick links
PPES created an uproar 'Tehelka'!
PPES past newsletters

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