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Published: January 21st 2014
I have mentioned our Impact project briefly so far in these posts, but it is about time I did a post dedicated to it.
The major part of my team’s stay here in India has been dedicated to our specific Impact Project- to set up a new Plus Pod in a village, from scratch.
We started in Chikkajala, which is on the main road between the airport and Bangalore city. Unfortunately we encountered a great deal of resistance here. Few parents were interested in the program, or were simply unable to pay the fees. Also, due to the proximity to the main road, we were unable to find a room to rent even close to our budgeted price. After four days of making little progress and gaining no local support- it was time to make a difficult decision.
To set up a new pod you need all of the three following things: a room to rent, a facilitator and enrollments. Without all three, a new Pod is not viable. After much discussion we decided that we were unlikely to secure all of these requirements in Chikkajala.
Over the weekend, our lovely team leader, Nat, scouted out a
village suggested by the 40K management, about 30mins by car in the other directions from where we live, nowhere near a main road. The village, Mandur, looked promising!
In our first day at Mandur, we gained more support and made more progress than we had in four days in Chikkajala- things were looking up! Our biggest break was probably meeting Anusha. She is the second top student in year 6 at the private school close by- and speaks fantastic english. We got here super excited about the Plus Pod and the program, and BAM- we had our local contact!
Anusha took me and Tracey around to about 20 homes one day one, explaining the program to the local families in Kannada! She is a saleswoman in the making, we barely had to do anything except hand over flyers and the tablet for demonstration! She has even convinced her father to rent us a sizable room he owns, at a significant discount to fit into our budget!
On Thursday, Anusha told me that it had been the best day of her life, because it had made her and her family so proud that she was able to help
us foreigners so much. She translated for us at an information session at the government school, in-front of an entire class and about 10 parents. Apparently the parents asked her, “Who’s your father? He is a good man for sending you to a good school so that you can speak such good English to help these people!”
At present we have expressions of interest from 26 students, a probable room to rent and facilitator candidates! All in all, our project in on track, and we are hoping that by 27 January, we will be ready to hold the opening ceremony. Given that we are “a week behind” due to our unsuccessful week in Chikkajala, this is an ambitious, but achievable target!
I will keep you posted on how the project fares this week.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
The project
A tear came to my eye as I read about your success and the good work you have planned. We will be following along and hoping to read about your wonderful adventure.