Ok, so the title of this post has not much to do what I am going to write about. The only reason I used this title was to have a convenient excuse for my longest period of 'moratorium' from this blog. Every time I thought of writing an entry, I would forget about it within 15 minutes. But sanity has been restored, and I am back.
First things first.
Remember Fast Forward India (FFI)? Remember Jagriti? It's now getting bigger and better. Our collective vision to have a robust computer literacy center for children has finally come to light and we now have not one but two centers in Dhanbad. With this combined strength, every year we will be able to teach 100-150 children. Hopefully more with every passing year. But it doesnt stop there. Jagriti has collaborated with the state government of Jharkhand, and our volunteers have started teaching basic computer skills to the prisoners in Dhanbad jail. Immense excitement follows. I am thinking of starting a separate blog for Jagriti. Also, if you guys have questions/comments/suggestions or if you are willing to start something similar in your locality, feel free to email me at jeet.mohan@gmail.com. I will be more than willing to help.
Needless to say, this is just the beginning and we have a long way to go. The idea is to channel the energy of college students to help the underpriveleged. There are challenges about sustainability and we have taken a few steps towards that. Maybe people with business skills might know it a bit better, but I think such projects become self-sustainable only if run using a revenue-generating model. In other words, have a model that generates revenue, and invest the revenue to grow further. We started off with a seed funding that was mostly collected through individual donations. But now we are thinking of charging a token fee of Rs 100 for the entire course from parents who could afford it. There are several other ideas regarding sustainability floating around over which we are still brainstorming. Stay tuned.
On a completely different note while still staying on the topic of education, I feel affirmative action is something that needs to be implemented at the primary/elementary/high school level and NOT at the university level or beyond. This whole system of affirmative action, to me, is like a pipe that has been punctured at wrong places. Instead of increasing the input at the very elementary level, the pipe has been punctured near the outflux to make a populist fix.
Getting me? No? Here is an example:
Say there are 1000 mechanical engineering graduates from US in any given year out of which 5% are from underrepresented minority (say women). Now to make this equation less male-dominated, one cannot just increase the quota of women hired from this small pool of 5% and hope to fix things. Obviously, if this 5% representation in college were to be somehow increased to 35% or more, this inequality will be less prominent. Stretching that further, it wouldnt suffice to just provide a blanket quota (or affirmative action) at the college level if the number of female high school students aiming to pursue engineering is relatively less compared to their male peers. That's why affirmative action, if any, needs to be provided at the elementary/high school level so that the pipe is not 'punctured' at random intervals to make quick and unfair fixes. If you have just 5% underrepresented minority section studying mechanical engg (say), you cannot complain about having 5% minorities in the companies. Simple. But politicians, by definition, refuse to look at something that has long-term dividends. They are more interested in instant payback (read votes). Example: Karunanidhi giving out free TV sets to gain 'instant votes'. :)
Anyhow, so now you know how unsuitable a title I have chosen. Hopefully next time, the title will be more apt and the content a bit lighter.
First things first.
Remember Fast Forward India (FFI)? Remember Jagriti? It's now getting bigger and better. Our collective vision to have a robust computer literacy center for children has finally come to light and we now have not one but two centers in Dhanbad. With this combined strength, every year we will be able to teach 100-150 children. Hopefully more with every passing year. But it doesnt stop there. Jagriti has collaborated with the state government of Jharkhand, and our volunteers have started teaching basic computer skills to the prisoners in Dhanbad jail. Immense excitement follows. I am thinking of starting a separate blog for Jagriti. Also, if you guys have questions/comments/suggestions or if you are willing to start something similar in your locality, feel free to email me at jeet.mohan@gmail.com. I will be more than willing to help.
Needless to say, this is just the beginning and we have a long way to go. The idea is to channel the energy of college students to help the underpriveleged. There are challenges about sustainability and we have taken a few steps towards that. Maybe people with business skills might know it a bit better, but I think such projects become self-sustainable only if run using a revenue-generating model. In other words, have a model that generates revenue, and invest the revenue to grow further. We started off with a seed funding that was mostly collected through individual donations. But now we are thinking of charging a token fee of Rs 100 for the entire course from parents who could afford it. There are several other ideas regarding sustainability floating around over which we are still brainstorming. Stay tuned.
On a completely different note while still staying on the topic of education, I feel affirmative action is something that needs to be implemented at the primary/elementary/high school level and NOT at the university level or beyond. This whole system of affirmative action, to me, is like a pipe that has been punctured at wrong places. Instead of increasing the input at the very elementary level, the pipe has been punctured near the outflux to make a populist fix.
Getting me? No? Here is an example:
Say there are 1000 mechanical engineering graduates from US in any given year out of which 5% are from underrepresented minority (say women). Now to make this equation less male-dominated, one cannot just increase the quota of women hired from this small pool of 5% and hope to fix things. Obviously, if this 5% representation in college were to be somehow increased to 35% or more, this inequality will be less prominent. Stretching that further, it wouldnt suffice to just provide a blanket quota (or affirmative action) at the college level if the number of female high school students aiming to pursue engineering is relatively less compared to their male peers. That's why affirmative action, if any, needs to be provided at the elementary/high school level so that the pipe is not 'punctured' at random intervals to make quick and unfair fixes. If you have just 5% underrepresented minority section studying mechanical engg (say), you cannot complain about having 5% minorities in the companies. Simple. But politicians, by definition, refuse to look at something that has long-term dividends. They are more interested in instant payback (read votes). Example: Karunanidhi giving out free TV sets to gain 'instant votes'. :)
Anyhow, so now you know how unsuitable a title I have chosen. Hopefully next time, the title will be more apt and the content a bit lighter.
7 comments:
Congrats on the growth of your social initiatives. You hit the nail on the head with the comment that such things need to be self-supporting. It might be a good idea to run a class (or two separate sets of classes) where 1/2 of the class pays 2x the cost so that the other half can get the same for free- i.e., structure it a la "One laptop per child." Plus, there is the added advantage in running a single class in that you could have kids from (slightly) different social circles interact with and learn from each other.
Re: affirmative action, couldn't agree more. Incentives need to be made as early as possible for underprivileged children so that they have a shot at the best careers too - whether they be scholarships or pro-bono coaching based on economic status (& I think parent's educational levels need to be a part of the calculation as well) so that a great majority of people will have a more or less equal opportunity to succeed in life.
One thing that has always pissed me off is that people do not understand that equal opportunity doesn't always result in equal outcome and that underrepresentation isn't always a result of a lack of opportunity. The best example for this is that very few females, even from upper economic circles where there is no pressure to choose a specific field of study, choose mechanical engineering, because by and large, it just doesn't appeal to very many women. The opposite is definitely true in nursing. Trying to equalize gender representation in these two careers will only result in mediocre candidates getting in over people who are more qualified and/or interested.
I could write on and on about this topic, but I should probably do it on my blog. :)
Hey Jitterz ty for ur recent comment in my blog!
I hv kinda stopped blogging at the moment..something just died in me...I dunno if I'd be bak, but if/when Im bak, I'd definitely holler at ya ;-)
TC ok and plz keep in touch!
Keshi.
ITG: thanks. that's one of the ideas we are thinking over.. but we still need to find out a way to make sure only eligible candidates get to attend the 'free' classes b/c given a choice, none of them would want to attend the paid ones. If that's the case, we wont have much revenue. but there should be a way out..
on a sidenote, am also thinking of starting wind power project in one of the villages .. again, will have to figure out how :)
keshi: good luck! enjoy the break :)
Im bak already ;-)
Keshi.
Bhelcome back! Halla Bol!
You might want to have 2 sets of classes then and recruit for the unpaid class from govt schools/ poorer sections of town. You can advertise a paid computer training class in middle class areas and enroll students from there for a decent fee. You can run the paid classes like a for-profit enterprise and use the surplus revenue from them to conduct a second set attended only by non-paying students that you have chosen from poorer communities. This way, it'll be somewhat fair and self-sustaining as long as you have students in the paid class.
Also, meant to mention earlier - you can write to the IG of Prisons for Jharkhand to see if they can award you a contract/$$ for your course material/ time, as he does have a prisoner rehab budget that pays for psychiatric counsel/ education/ vocational training etc for inmates. The problem might be that the govt doesn't often allow private entities to provide these services unless they are doing it for free, but as HoD, the IG has personal discretion to decide on such matters in his budget. It's definitely worth a shot, especially if you can convince him that they money will be used for public welfare.
Re: wind. It's probably a good idea given the elevation & wind speed in the Jharkhand area (assuming you're planning on doing it there.) I am actually of the opinion that small scale windpower for electricity generation isn't too cost-effective unless there is no connection to the grid yet. You may want to talk to Manu Sharma who blogs at http://www.orangehues.com/blog/. He's very knowledgeable on wind power and is a very helpful guy in general.
Thanks a lot for the link and advice. The place where we are planning to implement wind energy is back my native place (a village in bihar) where there is hardly any electricity even though grids have been installed since ages.
This is not part of FFI but the idea here too is to make it a revenue generating model where villagers pay some amount every month for the electricity. again, things have to be thought through more in detail.
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