“A great deal of talent is lost in the world for want of a little courage". A quote from the report of a school .
It is a pucca single room primary school with around 14 students, in a habitation – Tanda of around 14 households of Lambanis in Nelabanda Tanda in Khilla Ghanpur Mandal of Mahbubnagar District, Andhra Pradesh. This is a drought prone area where water has always been scarce. The socio economic status of these families is noted as below poverty line and it has a literacy level of 19% (2001). Like most of the villages in Mahbubnagar district the young adults of the Tanda migrate to the metros of Mumbai and Hyderabad to eke out a living as daily wage earners leaving behind only those who are either too young or too old to be a part of the earning community. These are the inhabitants of the Tanda and the young are the students of the Nelabanda Tanda Primary School. The Headmaster of this school is Mr Narender.
It has been a hard and long journey for the school. The challenges are unique to the community and varied. It could be a language barrier that Mr Narender overcame by learning the local dialect of the lambadas or it was convincing the parents to leave their children behind and not take them to Mumbai or Hyderabad to work with them as daily wage earners.
The key challenge of getting all the children to attend school has been overcome. There are no dropouts of this primary school and with some help from the headmaster some of the children have moved onto high school staying in hostels in the town of Mahbubnagar. Mr. Narender believes in not limiting education to schooling. His methods have been recognized by the schools in the District and teachers at the state level. The children have earned recognition for themselves by participating and winning many Mandal level and district level activities and competitions, realizing and proving that they are on par with any competition that comes their way in terms of knowledge.
It was Mr Narender who wanted COW to visit their school in 2004, he approached Bhupal the IP and asked him to make the school one of the stops in his regular circuit. Bhupal was very moved by the interest of Mr Narender and his students and he brought the school to the notice of ViDAL. In 2005 Rajeswari and Bhupal met Mr Narender who requested electronic services in the school. But it was in 2007 that it was possible for ViDAL to make a concrete contribution to the school. After much discussion between Mr Narender and the ViDAL team and active research, the year 2008 saw a computer powered by Solar energy installed in the school with educational software for the teacher and the students. After the installation Dr Jayanti Sivaswamy from IIIT and the ViDAL team visited the school and interacted with the students. The children are not just passive recipients of the technology; they are active participants in discussions about their interests.
Mr. Narender, Rajeswari, Bhupal and the ViDAL team agree that technology introduction will be primarily for 2 purposes – Knowledge and Skills improvement. The effort will aim at sustaining interest in education, towards finding better livelihood options and toward improving conditions in the villages. The fundamental underlying goals will be ecology and climate protection and linking these ideas to overarching economic development. It is agreed that technology will be used creatively and sparingly and in the event of a computer being the natural alternative possibility, a computer will be used.
