The reason why we need a bigger school
I have been running a school in the hills for 3 years now. The current school is in a house consisting of 7 rooms, two washrooms, a little patio. Three out of the 7 rooms are closed to us by the owner. This was not agreed upon but we have no choice but to keep functioning out of the 4 rooms.
A broadband internet connection using a pair of Ubiquiti devices placed on the school roof and in the city of Almora (that talk to each other wirelessly) is set up for the kids. A school cab was provided for the kids with nominal fee.
When the first session started in 2017, I intended to buy some land for the school on the cheap as soon as possible. But it proved to be an impossible task.
Land in the hills tends to be broken in several pieces belonging to different members of an extended family or a village. This means that a small amount of land has many owners, not all of them willing to sell or donate the land.
I kept trying to buy land for the school without success for 2.5 years while continuing to run the school. Here I was doling out money every month on expenses such as salaries, school supplies, and miscellaneous expenses while trying my best to find and buy a chunk of land. This is a low fees school with some kids not even paying any fees. Incoming from kids is always a lot shorter than outgoing.
All talks related to buying land failed repeatedly due to reasons such as disagreement between extended family members, land titles not clear, land belonging to scheduled castes which cannot be bought by a non-schedule caste person, people trying to sell land that was already taken by a bank due to loan defaults and so on.
Because the school was not meeting the norms for recognition by the state board, we were not getting registered despite providing much better education than other schools in the vicinity.
There were other problems too. Such as, some people who didn't want this school to prosper for various reasons including trying to promote their own 1-room-for-20-years-and-no-furniture private schools. Such people started spreading rumors about the school saying that this school will close down soon and will not get registered. These rumours ensured we couldn't scale up at all. Our emphasis on quality kept us going.
On top of it, I was dealing with teacher attrition, inability to find quality teachers in the area, sudden expenses, school cab which literally bled money in fuel and maintenance costs including breakdowns that required a substantial amount of money on repairs.
Because of a lack of rooms, we had to combine classes. Office room was combined with the library, kids had to make do with little playing space during recess; there was no room for computers, just one in the office which the kids loved!
The students started leaving every new session. From about 70 in 2017, we were reduced to 50 in 2018 and to about 36 in 2019. The staff went from being 10 in 2017 to being 5 in 2018 to being 3 in 2019.
However, not all was bad. My prayers were heard and Nature did intervene many times. Like Ms. Madhavi Voleti, a kind soul who was the first donor to the school, helped me get into talks with a pharma industrialist in Haridwar in 2018. This was a big guy! However, as it happens, I failed to impress the man.
At the start of 2019, Naveen ji intervened and donated salaries for teachers for a few months. It was a kind gesture.
When the vehicle broke down once, Rahul ji promptly helped me fix it by immediately donating money.
Dmitry ji has donated money multiple times to the school. I am and more so the students are forever indebted to him.
What I like about these folks is that none of them want any attribution for their help. It's like divinity giving me a sign to carry on. Telling me keep doing the good work. Don't lose hope. And here I am. The Math doesn't make any sense in this thing. Only faith keeps me going.
We are well respected in this area for providing quality education. This has been my thrust from day one. This school is not meant to make money. This school is meant to make an impact even if it is on just a handful of students who will otherwise never get access to good education.
With Laxman Giri Maharaj seeing my travails and turning me on to Nageshwar Giri Maharaj who kindly donated land for the school, I hope to carry on the work, God and mentors willing!
Jai Shri Ram
Thanks to Ms. Namita Pandey for giving me the idea to write this piece.
A broadband internet connection using a pair of Ubiquiti devices placed on the school roof and in the city of Almora (that talk to each other wirelessly) is set up for the kids. A school cab was provided for the kids with nominal fee.
When the first session started in 2017, I intended to buy some land for the school on the cheap as soon as possible. But it proved to be an impossible task.
Land in the hills tends to be broken in several pieces belonging to different members of an extended family or a village. This means that a small amount of land has many owners, not all of them willing to sell or donate the land.
I kept trying to buy land for the school without success for 2.5 years while continuing to run the school. Here I was doling out money every month on expenses such as salaries, school supplies, and miscellaneous expenses while trying my best to find and buy a chunk of land. This is a low fees school with some kids not even paying any fees. Incoming from kids is always a lot shorter than outgoing.
All talks related to buying land failed repeatedly due to reasons such as disagreement between extended family members, land titles not clear, land belonging to scheduled castes which cannot be bought by a non-schedule caste person, people trying to sell land that was already taken by a bank due to loan defaults and so on.
Because the school was not meeting the norms for recognition by the state board, we were not getting registered despite providing much better education than other schools in the vicinity.
There were other problems too. Such as, some people who didn't want this school to prosper for various reasons including trying to promote their own 1-room-for-20-years-and-no-furniture private schools. Such people started spreading rumors about the school saying that this school will close down soon and will not get registered. These rumours ensured we couldn't scale up at all. Our emphasis on quality kept us going.
On top of it, I was dealing with teacher attrition, inability to find quality teachers in the area, sudden expenses, school cab which literally bled money in fuel and maintenance costs including breakdowns that required a substantial amount of money on repairs.
Because of a lack of rooms, we had to combine classes. Office room was combined with the library, kids had to make do with little playing space during recess; there was no room for computers, just one in the office which the kids loved!
The students started leaving every new session. From about 70 in 2017, we were reduced to 50 in 2018 and to about 36 in 2019. The staff went from being 10 in 2017 to being 5 in 2018 to being 3 in 2019.
However, not all was bad. My prayers were heard and Nature did intervene many times. Like Ms. Madhavi Voleti, a kind soul who was the first donor to the school, helped me get into talks with a pharma industrialist in Haridwar in 2018. This was a big guy! However, as it happens, I failed to impress the man.
At the start of 2019, Naveen ji intervened and donated salaries for teachers for a few months. It was a kind gesture.
When the vehicle broke down once, Rahul ji promptly helped me fix it by immediately donating money.
Dmitry ji has donated money multiple times to the school. I am and more so the students are forever indebted to him.
What I like about these folks is that none of them want any attribution for their help. It's like divinity giving me a sign to carry on. Telling me keep doing the good work. Don't lose hope. And here I am. The Math doesn't make any sense in this thing. Only faith keeps me going.
We are well respected in this area for providing quality education. This has been my thrust from day one. This school is not meant to make money. This school is meant to make an impact even if it is on just a handful of students who will otherwise never get access to good education.
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| An unsuitable classroom, August 19, 2019, too many kids, not enough space for even a decent whiteboard |
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| Cramped space at the library cum school office, May 4, 2018 |
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| Combining two classes together, May 4, 2018 |
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| Shutter in a room, May 4, 2018 |
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| A prayer cum playground with limited space and safety concerns, May 4, 2018 |
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| A village home/shops turned into a school, May 4, 2018 |
With Laxman Giri Maharaj seeing my travails and turning me on to Nageshwar Giri Maharaj who kindly donated land for the school, I hope to carry on the work, God and mentors willing!
Jai Shri Ram
Thanks to Ms. Namita Pandey for giving me the idea to write this piece.
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