Q.1 What do you do?
Purkal Youth Development Society has grown in response to our local community needs. This is a poor rural area, where education is not widespread. Essentially we give local children the right sort of education to make them the future leaders of this community. This covers not only top end academics, but also food, medicine, arts, drama, sports and traditional dance and music. We also try to expose our students to the world beyond Purkal, with guest speakers and educational tours.
Q.2 How are you different?
Our difference is in our holistic response. Education alone is not enough. Our children are often malnourished, and come from deprived backgrounds.
Q.3 Where does the money come from?
All of our money comes from donations, usually from generous individuals. We have some income from foundations, but receive no support from the government.
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Q.4 How old are you?
The Swamys commenced tutoring in 1998, and it was from this work that the Society grew.
Q.5 How old are your beneficiaries?
Ages for people directly involved in our programmes range from 2, our youngest pre-Schooler, to women grandmothers.
We care for children in pre-school, children in classes 3 to 12, young adult graduates still under our patronage, and women working under the Stree Shakti banner
Q.6 Does it really work?
It is hard to measure “what if......”, however some of our success stories speak for themselves. What is certain is that without intervention children with great talent, potential and will to succeed would be condemned to lives of mediocrity. In simple terms of health, children are immunised, have balanced meals each day and are taught good hygiene practices. Their career hopes are now equal to children from the best schools in India, and they have reasonable expectation of achieving these dream positions.
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Q.7 Where do you plan to go from here?
Stree Shakti (women empowerment scheme) has been set up as an independent Society as it has now grown to maturity.
We wish to set up a fully CBSE (National examination board) accredited school. This will allow us to educate our children in-house in a consistent way using world class techniques. Currently our children in classes 9 – 12 attend a good school in Dehradun which has
Q.8 Will you be able to sustain?
We are becoming increasingly robust in funding; recruitment, training and retention of staff; and client relationship management. Funding has moved from dependence on individual donors to a more corporate platform. Our generous supporters have found us a good match for their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes. Because of our involvement with iDiscoveri and tgelf.
Q.9 Are there people volunteering or are they paid?
Both. We have volunteers from both India and abroad, and all of our Board members work entirely volunteers. They receive no remuneration or reimbursement at all.
All of our teachers and support staff are paid. We try to appoint local staff, and help develop skills and professionalism in them.
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Q.10 How many people work in the Society?
In 2009 – 10 we had XX people on staff, including XX teachers, drivers, cooks,
This continues to grow as the School takes its final shape.
Q.11 Why only some children?
We select children on the basis of poverty, and then on potential to succeed, including willingness to work hard.
Q.12 Is this unfair?
We only have limited funds donated by wellwishers and we need to invest this as wisely as we can.
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Q.13 What happens to the other children?
They continue in their local schools. However it is our belief that having at least one child in a family group attending PYDS there is a flow on to the other children who learn by example.
Q.14 Are their brothers and sisters jealous?
We can only rely on informal feedback, but it seems that the other family members are proud to have one of their family attending PYDS. They know that the benefits that the PYDS student will flow onto all the family.
Q.15 Do you support them after they leave you?Are they able to fit into their society after they have been through your school?
Where the graduate and their parents wish, we provide on-going support, through our On to Life Programme.
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Q.16 Do they leave the villages
Q.17 What kind of teachers do you have?
Our teachers are usually university educated young people, in their first job.
Q.18 Are parents involved
Parents are involved as far as is practicable. Because they often have little or no education of their own, it is difficult for them to engage meaningfully in school matters. To address this we have commenced a programme of parents’ evenings each month, where the children perform drama, music and song. We use this opportunity to not only showcase the advances that the children have made, but to induct the parents into the value of education. In time we hope to increasingly engage the parents as their children’s progress is very dependent on parental support.
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