Ruralzing invites school student

Halenijagal kids dancing

The Sunday, 28th Nov,2010 was different.

The students were divided into four groups. Each group had to present the idea as to "Define a feasible project for village development if you have a budget of 1 Lakh".

There were interesting ideas on

1. Improve irrigation and extend rainwater harvesting
2. Cultural center in villlage with a outlet on NH4 highway close to the village.
3. Scale biogas plant to cater to needs of every household.
4. Basic Health care center.

The constraint of the project were in line with India@75 vision of Professor Prahalad. The winning entry beat the runner up by mere 3 points.

The participating schools were Shishuvan from Mumbai, The Jain International School from Bilaspur and a school from Kochi.

The students played games like गिल्ली ओर डंडा (Gilli and डंडा), कंचे (marbles), लट्टू () and danced with local children in the school campus.



Highlights of the day

1. Kochi school kids
• talking about seasonal unemployment
• elaborating on 7-8 types of agriculture and irrigation methods
2. Bilaspur school kids
• Talked about primary/secordary and tertiary mode of occupation and enquired why locals didnt diversify.
• Animated presentation 
3. Mumbai school kids
• Interviewed household meticulously and found the skills and artifiacts of women and kids of Halenijagal
• Had three jains students who had brought in their own food.
• Showcased group dynamics of team building wherein folks infight but ultimately all's well and the dissident is made to present.

Nobody complained that lunch was being served at 3 PM. A few had to run becasue of slight drizzle.

Thank you

• Vishwa for managing and involving the local village residents.
• Rahul Mirchandani from Young India(YI) - CII - India@75 for letting us know of next practices. 
• Best practices have already been customized to a geography and culture, next practices will be India specific and better than best practices.
• Indian postal system is a great delivery and distribution channel. Commodity exchanges uses it to provide daily update of commodity rates. Rahul uses it to distribute his inert fertilizers through postman/master who also takes farmers feedback and reads out to them the response through e-post.
• Fully organic requires a staying power of atleast 3 years and acceptance of organic practice by community rather than individual. The pest will relish on your fields because the neighbours would have fertilizers/pesticides on them.  
• Darshan Mutha from Bangalore YI for inviting Bilaspur TJIS and for being the main act behind scene.
• I had a normal job and grew to Director level very fast. I used to pass cheques worth lakh of rupees and get the meagre monthly salary.
• One day I quit and waited for six months for my first assignment. The first assignment I asked a advance of 50%. It was equivalent of a years salary.
• I started seeing the gap in quality education setup, marketing and delivery. I am a one man show with small team and have worked in almost every major city in India. All in all in 8 years of my life.
• Pritam Kumar Sinha for inviting me and Abhishek for organizing the day. Both for continuing to run with the vision of Ruralzing through Infosys Young Indians chapters.
• Organic retailers have challenges for daily supply of vegetables as some days it will be 50 kgs and others it will be 500kgs of delivery. Rahul mentioned ISKON Akshya Patra scheme has multiple centers across states and thus is able to manage constant supply from different states for its mid-day school scheme.