Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (PPES) has been working towards social and economic empowerment of the rural girl child in Anoopshahr, Uttar Pradesh (U.P), India, since 2000. Anoopshahr is a tehsil in the Bulandshahr district and comprises of over 190 villages. It is one of the country’s poorest provinces and rates abysmally low in human development indicators.
Given the scenario at Anupshahr, PPES is on an ambitious mission to make a visible change here. Promising trends have already surfaced in the villages at Anoopshahr, which further motivates and validates PPES' vision. It goes beyond education by implementing a robust model backed by a fully functioning academic school for girls and a vocational training and production centre for women (including PPES graduates). The organization was institutionalized where more than 85% girls had no access to primary education and where parents are apprehensive to send their daughters to school in fear of losing income or domestic help during the school day. What began with families refusing to send their daughters to school, PPES now boasts 1100 students from 57 different villages. The model also resulted in the dropout rate plummeting from 85% in 2000 to less than 20% in 2010. This breakthrough was only possible by carefully implementing innovative strategies such as Rs.10 as scholarship for each day's attendance, free transportation, health checkup's, uniforms, books, hygiene essentials, three healthy meals a day, etc. The model proved successful in breaking the existing mindset and social stigma prevalent in the rural sector.
Furthermore, the organization directly reaches out to the student's villages by efficient and effective community development initiatives. That said, PPES is committed towards raising the quality of life of not just its students but the entire community at large. Thus far, it has been very successful in making a substantial impact:
These projects are a continuous process and PPES strives towards realizing its vision of education, employment and empowerment. As is evident from above, these efforts are neither limited to only PPES students nor limited to only school/curriculum related projects. Keeping up with this tradition, PPES has now decided to take a giant step towards making yet another large-scale, community-wide impact - The Green Initiative.
WHY GO GREEN?
Life comes pretty much to a standstill after sun down at Anupshahr. At a distance, all that is visible are smoldering dung cakes, candles, kerosene lamps or the very unsafe automobile battery-powered lighting. Electricity is a luxurious utility with the area receiving at most 3-4 hours of electricity per day, not necessarily for a continuous stretch and there are times when the area receives no electricity at all for days together. Thus, electricity tends to be more of a problem than a solution owing to costs, attempts to steal electrical power, unreliable supply and many more.
Green Energy - A Feasible Solution?
Green energy is often perceived to be associated with higher costs than conventional energy, which leads to a question on its affordability in rural India.
An understanding of the existing solutions available in rural areas, however, indicates that residents of rural India already pay a very heavy premium for the luxury of access to electricity or lighting in comparison to their urban counterparts. In the absence of regular grid based electricity supply, their most common resort is diesel for generating electricity (if at all), and kerosene lamps and candles for lighting. Both diesel and kerosene are solutions that are expensive, unhealthy and polluting. Solar technology - a clean and healthy alternative - turns out to be the ideal solution in this scenario. Its long life and minimal maintenance costs enable it to be economically sustainable in the long run. However, it requires an upfront investment which becomes a deterrent for those who are at the absolute bottom of the pyramid.
THE GREEN INITIATIVE AT PPES
The project involves going green - educating the community about sustainable energy and introducing & implementing solar technology towards various causes. PPES has already installed solar street lamps at the school and have currently identified two projects which could help the community at large:
The above two projects are a joint initiative with Advait Energy.
The Facts
WHAT:
This project involves going green - educating the community about sustainable energy and introducing and implementing solar technology
towards various causes.PPES has already installed solar street lamps at the school and have currently identified two projects which could help the community at large:
