“Every Child an Entrepreneur” – The power of “I CAN”

October is the birth month of the father of our Nation and the man who has influenced TFI’s theory of change in no small way. “BE THE CHANGE” said Mahatma Gandhi and we devote this month to TFI staff, fellows and students and who are living those words and being the change. The very first post comes from Shashank bhaiya and Sandeep bhaiya and their students’ amazing and inspiring effort in Being the change.

The idea of “Every Child an Entrepreneur” came about when the kids desired changes in their school (Sunrise English School) in the form of computer education. Since the school did not have funds for a computer, the kids initially decided to raise fund by donation but coming from low income communities, they were able to raise only 3K which was not sufficient to buy a computer. Despite the set-back, the children turned it into an opportunity by coming up with a brilliant idea to organize themselves in interest groups and work over Saturdays to produce artefacts for a Fun fair using the initial 3K as seed money. The idea was that they wanted to create a market where they could sell their goods and hopefully raise enough funds for a computer.

On 2nd October 2010, the Sunrise Team organized SUNFEST – A FUN FAIR!! The Fun Fair was Phase 2 of the “Every Child an Entrepreneur” program wherein the school children tried to raise funds for buying a school computer; from a fun filled event featuring games, prizes, music, delicious food and art+crafts made exclusively by the kids over the past few weeks. The event was a huge success with more than 20 stalls put up by the students attracting more than 1000 visitors. The event made a profit of 13K which was enough to buy a computer as was the original objective of the “Every Child an Entrepreneur”.

Watch the video for SUNFEST – A FUN FAIR!!

The most heartening aspect though is the fact that it has given the kids the confidence of “I CAN” and they are already planning for a larger “Annual Event”  with the objective of raising funds for a water purification unit in school. As was apt on occasion of 2nd October, “The Children became the CHANGE they want to see in the world”

The school submitted this project to the Design for Change Contest. Here’s wishing the young entrepreneurs all the best!

Shashank Shukla and Sandeep Mallareddy are two Teach for India fellows from the 2010 cohort, committed to ending educational inequity in India. They work in a low-income community private school in Pune called Sunrise English School.

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87 ideas, 87 Aspirations- Milind Nagda

As the Fellows grapple with the question – What after TFI? Here are 87 Ideas, 87 Aspirations, One idea per Fellow. Lets figure out how to make them a reality….

1. Help build excellent Pre-KG and KG for government schools

2. A Teacher Training Institute (especially for Municipal School Teachers)

3. A research and department rating system for R&D groups in India. Also, a consolidated place which accesses and talks about them.

4. An advocacy sister group – aka Leadership for Education Equity from TFA

5. An online website for teacher collaboration on lesson plans – aka www.betterlesson.com

6. An group that works to enable collaboration online and offline amongst all education or development sector NGOs in India

7. A forum which leverages technology to enable learning for under resourced children using technology – it should be attuned to needs of parents, children and teachers

8. A social enterprise that raises volunteers who can assist in classroom education – for TFI and then for other partner NGOs

9. A “TFI For Senior Citizens” – a social enterprise that is tuned to involve senior citizens in social work

10. A career guiding or “career coach”-ing enterprise – that uses a “robinhood” model to serve career needs of under-resourced children

11. Impact for India (TFI type organization for other sectors) : TFI for health, TFI for agriculture, TFI for public works, TFI for rural welfare, TFI for vocational skills, TFI for sports

12. Implement and experiment models for TFI for rural areas, TFI for smaller cities, TFI for third and fourth tier applicants

13. A grassroots level organization for “urban community building” – a scalable model for Manav Sadhana type organization

14. The Art of Living Rural and Tribal schools run 90+ schools in India. Introducing activity based learning and new teaching methodologies in these schools would form a great model.

15. Akanksha is looking to quadruple the number of schools in Mumbai and Pune – even expand nationwide in future. A great opportunity to be a school leader and build centers of excellence.

16. Make “One School For All” a reality nationwide – a single school that integrates children from both resourced and under-resourced communities.

17. Start an “Urban Ashram” like one in Pune along with a Seva Café in different cities

18. Make cities in India child friendly – like Riverside’s “aproach” project

19. Build strong alumni programs at TFI for each of “School and Teacher Leadership”, “Political and Advocacy Leadership”, “Social Entrepreneurship” or “NGO/Board Leadership”

20. Teach For All Leadership positions in other countries

21. Build technology and education collaboration in and outside TFI

22. Indicorps Fellowship

23. Bringing together various youth movements in India : Jaagore, Indicorps, Gandhi Fellows, TFI, Young Indians, Rotract/Interact

24. Start a Connect India LEAD+ for Indians

25. “Swadhyay” – spend one year travelling around India spending two months in each ashram. Or if you like in different schools around the country.

26. An online resource portal on ESL for Hindi speaking audience similar to khanacademy.org

27. Mobile education packages like MDhil has for medical use. Look up MILLEE from Carnegie Melon University.

28. Bring the best in education through online packages for under-resourced communities and figure out last mile delivery.

29. Create an “Incubator Fellowship” – a Fellowship where you can experiment to create your social experiments and see them through. A lot of collaboration opportunities provided.

30. Make a case for and start high quality charter schools in India – KIPP for India

31. Take a year off to nurture and grow your passions. For me Travel, Pottery, Archery, Sanskrit, Drums, Books, Blog and More Travel. You pick yours!

32. Start Indian version of “The New Teacher’s Project” (TNTP)

33. Travel the world for a year to study youth programs and movements. Connect. Study. Research. Learn.

34. School Coach or Consulting to develop new schools or improve schools

35. Political involvement group for youth in India – TFI for Politics, GYIPS

36. Child spaces for disabled children

37. An excellent school where children with learning disabilities are integrated

38. A leadership Institute (College) for Youth – aka African Leadership Institute.

39. Big Brother Big Sister mentoring program in India

40. Habitat For Humanity – housing for under-resourced in India

41. Special Olympics – sports for differentially-abled children in India

42. Reach out Mumbai! – a movement where citizens volunteer once a month with different NGOs or organizations

43. Capital Area Food Bank in India – collecting food and distributing to needy across the country

44. Goodwill stores in India – donate items whose proceeds are used to help under-resourced communities

45. An online website that enables one single point application for Indian students to get Scholarships for study abroad

46. Internships for people coming from abroad. Internships for people in India with a focus on development sector.

47. A venture capital fund: Education Reform Venture Fund aka NewSchools Venture Fund

48. Ed Week or “Teacher Magazine” like magazine – education magazine

49. Hippocampus (Bangalore) and Early Childhood Center (Delhi) like children library or reading room chain. Also, see Rooms To Read.

50. Education Week like Online ed daily (similar to 48 but different)

51. Alternative Education and Home Schooling – investing in Indian context

52. Kumon Publishing type books but with Indian context

53. Recipe For Reading and Indian Phonics books. Even franchise phonics classes all over the country.

54. “Holistic” activity or entertainment centers for Art, Drama, Craft, Sports and Dance – where resourced and under resourced kids come together in integration

55. Summer Indoor and Outdoor Activity Camps for children (esp underresourced ones)

56. TED-EdxIndia – TED type talks specific to Indian Education

57. Ed Venture Lab – tie up with IIMs or SP Jain type institute to form India’s first lab focused on Educational Ventures

58. Ed Reform and Enterpreneurship Competition – an autonomous body that holds a Non-profit and For Profit Business Plan competition in ed-reform and edu-preneurship

59. Creative recreational and fun spaces – can we create creative spaces where children in the city can come spend “down” time?

60. A social networking site for all Teach For All Fellows – a “Facebook” only for TFAll

61. Blogging for TFI Fellows aka www.teachforus.org

62. Enabling a strong social networking presence for Teach For India

63. Fellowship – Piramal Fellowship for Sustainable Businesses

64. Fellowship – Gandhi Fellowship

65. Fellowship – Tony Blair Faith’s Fellowship

66. Fellowship – Ashoka Fellowship

67. Fellowship – Atlas Corps Fellowship

68. Start a “White House” Fellowship program for Indian Government

69. School or Teacher Leadership Partners – Riverside, Muktangan, Shishuvan, Akanksha

70. Improve Education Initiative’s standards and assessments (now that you have worked with them night and day!)

71. Start an EI type assessment testing body. Or join other options – Indus, EI, EQFI

72. Study different schools in India with a specific culture – start a new school

73. Travel around the world to learn about new schools. Identify the charter school movement in the US and other countries – start a charter school movement in India

74. Travel to Finland which is known for its education all over the world. Identify best practices and port them to India.

75. Find a community idea – and apply for Comminteers Fellowship

76. Work as a consultant with the Central Government – now we know one young Indian working for HRD and one for Women and Children’s Department. It’s possible!

77. Work as an executive assistant or in the team of a young/progressive politician – Sachin Pilot, Naveen Jindal, Rahul Gandhi, or others

78. A “Heal For India” – TFI type Fellowship to improve municipal hospitals. Or medical options for the under-resourced communities, there is a dire need for affordable health care.

79. “Traditional” Corporate options – Investment Banking, Consulting, Law, HR, Banking, Engineering, Sales and Marketing.

80. CSR groups in a corporate or foundations or charities. For engineers – Google, Microsoft, Intel, and many other big companies have “social” or “development” projects.

81. Pursue education in the field of your choice – education, medical, business, policy, law, design and engineering. If possible pursue cross-specializations.

82. Scholarships and Fellowships for Education Abroad – Fullbright Scholarship, Reliance Dhirubhai Fellowship for Stanford, Berkeley MBA Scholarships for Social/Development Sector, amongst many others.

83. Set up or grow philanthropic foundations in India – like Sloan Foundation, Gates Foundation, Dell Foundation

84. Make films and documentaries especially on education related topics in India – like Waiting For Superman, 21st Century Initiative by New Learning Institute

85. Build national institutes like NSF. Or setup an independent body that monitors R&D labs in all fields in India., publishes about them and gives them a rating.

86. The RTE mandates that every school should have 25% from under-resourced communities. Consult with good schools to help them setup this integration successfully.

87. Set up an International Institute for Professional Teachers – a world-wide body of professional teachers with centers all around the world. The idea is to champion the cause of teachers and their issues by collaborating with people from round the world.

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