New website: Empowering India

Empowering India is a website by Liberty Institute, India. They collect and compile information about candidates contesting elections and present them at their website. Their blog is here.

I have a few suggestions for them and others interested in this:

• Look at Sunlight Foundation for inspiration.
• Make some kind of query API available.
• Create widgets that users can add to their blog, Facebook or any other social networking page. It can show information like how many crorepati contestants are in a 50km radius :) Or maybe a map of India plotting “criminal complaint density”.
• Make this available in other languages, at least Hindi. Google’s AJAX Language API is a good starting point.
• I know the above require manpower. As an alternative, make the compiled databases publicly available. You can simply provide a database dump, or upload it to an online database like Dabble DB. There are web developers (maybe me) out there who can use this information, analyze this and make a richer presentation.
• Not very important, but get a modern look and feel.

Hat Tip: Shantanu’s blog

Grow By Reading: A conversation with Umesh Malhotra

This post was copied from http://mssnlayam.livejournal.com/16028.html Please refer to the original version for formatting and comments.

Last week I had a conversation with Umesh Malhotra. Umesh, an Ashoka fellow is the Chief Executive Director of Hippocampus Reading Foundation. Hippocampus' vision is to “inspire children to want to read more.” Their “Grow By Reading” program is an activity based program that enables kids to assess their own reading levels, excites them to read books, improve their reading skills and overall become better citizens.

Hippocampus is based in Bangalore. If you live nearby you should check them out and ask how you can help them. “Grow By Reading” is a scalable program that can be adopted by other NGOs. If you are in other places in India and are in touch with NGOs, or would like to take this program to a school near you, please contact them to know how one can adopt their system, and take the joy of reading to many more children.

When I talked to Umesh, I could see his anguish at the current state of children; and his excitement at the possibilities that his reading program has to offer them. Here is a “paraphrased transcript” of my conversation with Umesh. I have edited it for brevity, while keeping the overall content and message intact.

Suriya Subramanian [SS]: What is your background and how did you get into the non-profit sector?
Umesh Malhotra [UM]: I was in the IT sector for close to 12 years. After I finished from IIT-Madras, I joined Infosys in 1990, when it was still a fledgling company. In 1999, I started my own firm called Bangalore Labs. In 2002, I had the chance to sell my firm to a Singaporean. I was looking at what next in life.

In 1998-99, when we were in the US, my son was 5 years old. We were enamored by the public library system in the US. We felt that if India wants to be a leader in the economy, is it too much to expect India to have a good library system? In 2002, my wife Vimala was working on this project of starting a library, and I decided to join her. That led to Hippocampus.

SS: How did the library take off?
UM: We started Hippocampus in March 2003. We wanted to a library that would be economically sustainable. We did what we thought was needed. We came up with a model where we said, for example, malls have events at their facility to attract children, we felt we would have to do something similar.

We viewed libraries as completely vibrant spaces that are competing for a child's leisure time, with television, playstation, or malls. We did that, and we were successful. From month one we were cash flow positive.

SS: What were your next steps?
UM: After six months, we asked, are children in poor families willing to read? We partnered with other NGOs and found the response from even the poorest child very positive. They too wanted to read books, look at the pictures.

SS: Did you face any issues with children lacking reading skills?
UM: We found that these children were not fluent readers. They were not even competent, and had to address this issue. We did various things and ended up with a program Grow by reading. This is an activity-based program. We assess their reading levels and assign appropriate books and help them gain confidence in their reading skills. This program is now active in 60 government schools.

SS: Are these schools only in Bangalore?
UM: It has taken us about two years to learn, and six to eight months to develop this program and a year to launch it. We believe we are ready to expand it to other cities. We are talking to people in Mysore and other cities.

SS: What is the primary language of the program?
UM: We operate in poorer communities where the main language is the mother tongue. In Bangalore we operate in Kannada and English. English is the second language in most school. We are currently developing the program in Urdu, and will expand to Tamil in the future.

SS: What is the cost of setting up a library and what are your sources of funding?
UM: Setting up a library is a collaborative effort. We partner with NGOs who have grassroots contacts and networks. If we were to set up this program in five hundred districts, we'd become the Government of India. We view us as agents of change. We realize we can't do it on our own. Local NGOs raise funds in their communities to set up the program. They have to believe in this program and feel ownership.

To set up a library for about 300 children it costs about Rs 25,000/- to buy books. The running cost is about Rs 4,000/- a month, provided the government provides space. This is to pay the librarian who is a dedicated person, or a teacher in the school. Our program cost — training, supervision and mentoring — works to about Rs 15,000/- a year.

SS: How qualified does the librarian need to be?
UM: We have created the program assuming that we will not be able to get high quality people as librarians. They need not be a qualified librarian or even a teacher. They need an enthusiastic person who knows to read and write the language. Typically we work with people who have just finished their 10th or 12th. We train and mentor them. We have managed to create about 30 librarians who can walk in to any school and do a fantastic job.

SS: Can you comment about the reading levels of children in general?
UM: Children in 1st standard should be able to read something like “Hoe and Poe are two dogs.” This is level 1. We find that, only half are able to read this. Even in 5th standard there are 40% of students still stuck at the level 1 reading level, in government schools in India. They have not progressed in school at all. Less than 5% in any class can read age-appropriate text.

We do not focus on children who cannot even read at level 1. We leave it other organizations like Pratham to do that. We want to take children from level 1 and take them to “Raja and Rani went to the jungle and met a tiger …, ” and so on. That is the type change we are focussing on.

SS: How can other organizations benefit from your expertize in this area?
UM: We welcome any organization to adopt our program. Initially we play a supervisory role. We then mentor them for two years, and would like them to take care of it on their own. If there is considerable interest, we can even get working in a new language in three to four months time. We are in talks with an organization in Tamil Nadu that wants to set up 100 libraries in 100 schools.

SS: Do you collaborate with the government? How successful are you?
UM: There is some interaction. Though change is slow to happen. We have talked about reviving the public library infrastructure. We are meeting with the Director of Public Libraries this week. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome, but let us see how it goes.

SS: Can you tell me about how you became an Ashoka fellow?
UM: The Ashoka Foundation tracks people to see how they are performing. I got an email and met with them casually about two years ago. This is something social entrepreneurs won't know of. That someone is tracking you, seeing how you are doing.

It took them two years to get back to me again, and they asked me to fill up a form apply for a Asoka Fellowship. It was about forty pages long, and took me two weeks. Then there were two rounds of interviews, approval by the national board, and then by the international board. It is a long process.

SS: Can you say about people around you, and who are most important for your efforts to succeed?
UM: Number one is our team. We have a great team of individuals how have stayed with us. This helped us focus on the actual task and not on knowledge transfer. Next is our network of partners. Finally, the most important people are the community of book publishers. We need to reach out to them. Publishing in local languages in India is non-existent.

SS: You mean, for children, right?
UM: Even for adults. Look at the size of Tamil Nadu and the number of books. Compare this to the number of books the French do. Even if they do not have original content, they have lots translated books. That does not happen here. We do not have an active publishing industry.

We are still focussed on Thiruvalluvar. We need to move on. If you and I were brought up on Shakespeare we would never read English. Even the medium is changing. Things are becoming more and more visual. Publishers and writers need to be sensitized, to keep up with the times. Look at how the film industry has changed. The language used in MGR and Shivaji Ganesan films are not used by Rajinikanth today. Local language publishers are not evolving, like how English publishers have.

SS: Thank you Umesh for taking the time.
UM: Thanks to you too.

Visit to an NGO based in Mamallapuram

This post was copied from http://mssnlayam.livejournal.com/10499.html Please refer to the original version for formatting and comments.

I am a volunteer with Vibha, a non-profit organization that focusses on improving the lives of underpivileged children. Vibha supports various child-developement projects in India and the United States (India map). More than a month ago (on 2008/08/22) I visited one such project based in the historic town of Mamallpuram. The project is run by an organization named “Society for Education and Action”, headed by Mr. S Desingu. I went there to get a better understanding of how the project works, what challenges the community there faces, and how the project is helping them.

I did not take pictures, but they would have looked similar to these pictures that someone else took in the past.

I was accompanied by my friend and fellow Vibha volunteer D, and my brother. We wanted to leave Chennai and get to the place early. My brother arranged a car for us to get there. The driver did not show up because there was a diesel shortage in Chennai (triggering my rant about free markets versus government control). After a few frantic phone calls, the cab firm managed to send a vehicle and fortunately we were able to get going. SEA's field office is right in the middle of the tourist center in Mamallapuram where all the main hotels are. We got there in about 2 hours.

We were welcomed warmly at the field office. While it was nice to be respected for being from Vibha (which funds part of their operations) it was a bit uncomfortable, and it took some time to for Mr. Desingu and others to settle down and treat us normally. After introducing us to various employees, Desingu got down to talk with us. We talked about various things — his background, life in the villages, and how Vibha funding is being utilized.

Mr. Desingu's background

Desingu is a 6th generation fisherman. He was born in a family of five. He has two sisters both of whom never went to school. This is typical of women in that part of the county, though female literacy and education is improving these days. He has two brothers, one who has studied till 6th grade and other till 8th grade. Desingu is the first person in his entire village to receive college education. His college tuition was paid with donations from several of his friends. He has a B.A. in Psychology from Madras University. He is an amazingly energetic person, with an infectious enthusiasm. It was a joy to meet with him.

In 2000, Desingu and a few of his socially conscious friends decided to start an organization to serve their community. The were an informal group of people who went about their own way improving the lives of people around them. They called their organization “Society for Education and Action (SEA)”. They organized various campaigns to educate villagers about on various fronts — empowerment, sanitation, social ills, etc. The conducted medical camps with support from other organizations. One positive thing is that other villagers offered their full encouragement and support. Villages usually have a common fund to which every family contributes to. These funds are used for common expenses such as festivals and temple ceremonies. The various villages donated a part of their common fund to SEA.

A couple of years after operating this way, they registered formally as a Non-governmental organization (NGO). Later, they received foreign funds (from World Vision, if my memory serves me right). Things were going along normally when disaster struck their villages. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated Tamil Nadu's coastline. With funding from several sources, SEA was involved in Tsunami rehabilitation efforts. Vibha funded part of SEA's Tsunami relief efforts, and has been involved with other programs ever since.

Life in these villages

I always ponder about how small Vibha and other organizations like AID and Asha are when compared to the problems they are trying to solve. This become even more clear during my conversation with Desingu. There are 33 villages in Kancheepuram District along the Bay of Bengal coastline. SEA has worked with every village during various stages of their existence. SEA currently operates in 11 villages (6 of those funded by Vibha). These are just the coastal villages. There are hundreds of villages in Kancheepuram district alone. It is going to take quite a while before they get high quality education, water, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure, and eventually a better standard of living.

These villages mainly consist of two groups of people — Fishermen and Dalits, who work as laborers in agricultural lands. Dalit discrimination becomes more prevalent as you get further away from Chennai along the coast. Economic growth, because of the proxmity to Chennai reduces discrimination in nearby areas. The situation is worse in interior villages. The number of children per family is still pretty high, close to about 5. These families live in extreme poverty. It is a big challenge to keep girls in school because they are forced to take care of their younger siblings.

As part of Tsunami rehabilitation, the government provided boats and fishing nets to the “head of the family”. The head by definition had to be married. Consequently, there was a wave of “Tsunami weddings” where young adolescents got married. SEA organized several campaigns to stop these child marriages, and got the village Panchayats (which even today have a lot of clout) to issue a proclamation to stop such marriages.

Programs funded by Vibha

I am not going into detail about these programs as that information is available elsewhere.

Among other things, SEA is currently involved in providing a better education to children in nearby villages. SEA provides additional teachers to government schools to support overworked teachers. SEA has motivation centers where students brush up on what they learnt after school. They also work with parents and the various Parent Teachers Associations (PTA) to have a more productive interaction.

SEA's high school teachers have created models to explain various science concepts and experiments on their own initiaive. Some were extraordinary, and reflected the teachers' ingnuity. It was surreal when I saw a cardboard model of Vernier Calipers. It struck me that these kids have not even seen a real one, how are they going to understand how it works?

SEA's annual report metions each program it conducted in the past year.

Field visit to a Government school

After some time at the field office, we decided to visit a government school to talk to the students and teachers. We went to Adaiyalacheri village, about 20 kilometers from Mamallapuram. It was a great joy to see those enthusiastic children. The primary school has about 60 students from 1st to 5th grade. All sixty of them are housed in the same classroom. This is something I have known before, but it was really startling to see it in person. These schools follow a new system introduced by the Tamil Nadu Government known as Activity-Based Learning, where each person has a kit with study material, boards, cards, etc. They perform various exercises in those kits and move on to harder exercises and learn in the process. The teacher's job is more difficult. They have to pay individual attention to each kid, since each one is doing something different on their own. Vibha funds two additional teachers and helps reduce the workload of the lone government teacher in the school. A group of students were taking part in a “reading program” in a different room. In this program their reading and comprehension abilities are graded and they are provided material appropriate to their grade. They improve to harder material over time.

Two girls in their fourth grade, Shahira Banu and Gajalakshmi, came to us and started speaking in English. We responded in English and learnt about their school, families, play time, etc. I can still remember the broad smile and enthusiasm on their faces. I cannot describe in words how happy I felt talking to them. It was the best moment of my vacation in India.

Bridge program for school dropouts

We went to another place where about a dozen adoloscents were being coached for their 10th standard public exams. These are students who have either attempted and failed the exam in the past, or have dropped out of school in an earlier grade. Without clearing this exam they have no academic future. These students have at various points of time worked various odd jobs. Some have been constuction workers. Some have worked in restaurants in Chennai. One guy worked as a “ball boy” in a tennis club in Besant Nagar. Everyone has worked as part of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Their public exam is this month and I hope they do well.

Does Vibha actually make a difference?

The problem Vibha is trying to address is huge. In comparison, Vibha is a tiny organization. For the small number of people touched by Vibha, the funding makes a big difference. A very tangible example is the dropout students program mentioned above. These students face enormous challenges to succeed in life. This program offers a small helping hand and supporters of this project can derive satisfaction in these student's success.

The way a small funding organization should operate is to identify deserving grassroots organizations and social workers that are waiting to become famous. It should then nurture these organizations with the goal of moving them towards seeking funds from larger organizations; or their model being adopted by the government in a large scale.