Page 10 - Gears & Ears January 2015

Gears and Ears

Journal of the Rotary Club of Lake Buena Vista

Page 10 January 2015
From Rotary International

How a simw a simple scple school prhool project in India became a goject in India became a global global grrantant
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How a simple school project in India became a global grant
How a simple school project in India became a global grant
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Two years ago, U.S. Rotary members in Maine set
out to improve the education system in Bikaner,
Rajasthan, an Indian city near the border of Pakistan.
The Rotary Club of Kennebunk Portside chose
Bikaner because club member Rohit Mehta was
originally from the area and had connections there.
Mehta put the club in contact with Rotarians in India
to provide desks for four government-run schools. But
when community leaders returned with a request for
more desks, the Maine Rotarians decided they had
to think bigger.
Photo courtesy Cornelia Stockman, Rotary Club of Kennebunk Portside, Maine

The Rotary Foundation had rolled out its new grant model, which required that the club do more than just
purchase school furniture to qualify for global grant funding. Club leaders put their heads together and turned a
simple project to provide school desks into a global grant project by adding a campaign to recruit new students
and professional development for teachers. “Because the new grant standards required further thought, a
superior grant emerged,” notes Peter Johnson, Rotary Foundation chair for District 7780, which covers Maine.
“Additional questions were asked, which boil down to, ‘OK, they need benches [desks] and you want to help
them get their benches, but what’s going to happen with these benches?’ The standards dramatically improved
the project’s scope, tone, and tenor.”

The Rotary clubs worked with School Management Committees — teams of school administrators, community
leaders, and Bikaner Rotary members — to determine what each school needed most. They discovered that
the children were unschooled and had never sat in a classroom before. So the committees decided it would be
easier to get the students to commit to a three-day-a-week lesson plan.

The global grant will provide desks for 1,685 students. In addition to instruction in basic subjects, the curriculum
aims to improve students’ self-confidence, communication skills, leadership skills, and personality development.
Cornelia Stockman, a member of the Maine club, traveled to Bikaner early in the grant planning process. She
said she was impressed by the level of commitment and professionalism displayed by the School Management
Committees.

There is no compulsory attendance beyond sixth grade. The local education experts insist the students are
more likely to stay in school if they have a desk to sit at, Stockman says. Mehta is thankful the grant was able to
help his native country. “I thought it would be great if we could do something with a region that I had ties to,”
Mehta says. “And good education is fundamental to the quality of life.”

“We had to go back to them three or four times, but every time we asked them to do something else, they did it,”
she recalls. “They never gave up, and did everything necessary to meet the requirements of the global grant.”
Condensed from an article by Arnold R. Grahl Rotary News 5-Dec-2014

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