Town Schools - A Community approach to Developing Rural India

An approach to develop Rural India would be to actually start developing the rural communities internally. It's like strengthening the community from within, instead of finding an external solution, or like diagnosing the problem and treating the cause instead of superficially treating the symptom.

Government programs are not community based, as they do not involve the people at large. The people at large look upon most of these programs with mistrust, and for some they become an opportunity to profiteer. As compared, a community based approach would blend a public (government) private partnership of some sort and involve people at large. An effective PPP mode will enable the distribution of work in a manner dictated by the competencies of the parties. Communities will take care of their basic necessities, such as education, food healthcare, credit and banking, etc.

The village of "Ramganj" has a beautiful school "Town School – Ramganj", privately managed by a local eminent person, who in collaboration with Town Schools has created a K-12 school, affiliated to a national board. The teachers have been recruited from the community, are adequately and continuously trained, and are well paid. After all the students pay a descent tuition fee. The village understands very well, that quality does not come free, and maybe that's why the government school, next door is now where the cows moo and the other village animals park themselves. This community based school has a beautiful library, the best in the village, provides best possible education to its children, provides livelihood to its employees, who have to prove their skills continuously, for they know that nothing can be taken for granted in the private sector.

"Town School – Ramganj" becomes a vocational skills training center in the afternoon. Youth in the age group of 14 to 40, and sometimes even older people come to get training in employable skills. Town Schools has a partnership with many corporates across India, who are in need of skilled labour. Town Schools is preparing these people for employment, but this employment is to be created within the local areas only. Though our people are free to travel, move to any location they choose, the objective of the Town Schools model is to create and place skilled people locally, such that the talent is withheld in the local community. Again, apart from creating skilled and employable youth, Town Schools has created local jobs.

There is also a "Basic Healthcare Facility" in Town Schools. In a partnership with a hospital chain, Town Schools provides its infrastructure to set up a basic general clinic. Via this model we are able to provide basic but life critical services in many far off areas, and we again create employment for our community people.

Another room in Town Schools is being used by the State's largest Micro-Finance firm. People, wanting to expand their local businesses, invest in new businesses, buy equipment, etc, come here and work with this micro-finance company.

Town Schools is also the best technology solutions provider in the village, it has state of the art computers, printers and scanners, and has a team of technology savvy people who manage this digital laboratory. Story goes, that a few of the Town Schools graduates become entrepreneurs and set up this lab as an experiment. It is now a successful business, and they cater to the entire communities need of printing, digitizing information, etc. These kids have created a reprographics business.

Apart from this, Town Schools hosts a variety of social programs, health awareness programs, such as awareness around H1N1, cancer awareness programs, prudent financial management programs and education programs.

Town Schools is many things to the community, it provides basic schooling, it provides training and skilling and job placements to the youth, it provides basic healthcare facilities to its people, it provides credit and financing to its community, it creates awareness around important issues, it provides employment to the many from the community that work in its many programs. Town Schools is central to the community and is managed by the community. I have heard that the community is adding on to the services that can be provided by Town Schools.

There is a Town School in every village, all of them are connected via technology, they transfer best practices to each other, they learn from each other, they are managed by a central organization that is networked globally and has state of the art domestic and international partnerships whose benefits can be funneled in all Town Schools on a real time basis, but they thrive on a decentralized basis, in their own communities. Town Schools are communities plugged in to the world.

Source : Equity Bulls

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