Pardada Pardadi Educational Society in a village in UP focuses on helping the girl child get the best shot at life with education, life skills and career

The 80 bullets shot at his SUV almost a decade-and-a-half ago punctured the car but definitely not his determination. “When you can see your goal, nothing else matters, does it?” asks the man whose 40 years in the West couldn’t give him the accent some Indians living there even for a few weeks come back with. For minutes after you speak to Virender (Sam) Singh, the once US Dupont South Asia Head, you realise that his dedication and problem-solving approach are his biggest strengths, traits one doesn’t see too often nowadays. So when he reached his village, in western UP, March 1, 2,000, a month after one of his daughters started working in India, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He set up a school for girls that not just provided them formal education but also helped them with life skills and prepared them for the road ahead.

TEETHING TROUBLES

It’s not like he didn’t know there would be roadblocks. He realised the challenge he was up for (Bulandshahar, the district the village comes under is infamous for its high crime rates). “So I had a bulletproof car you, see,” he says smugly. That aside, there were the perception issues (Why should girls go to school, for instance) that Sam was doing all this to garner popularity to become a politician. But when you see your goal ahead, you fight the obstructions that come in the way. Exactly what the soon to be 75-year-old did. And that is the story of the birth of Pardadi Pardadi Educational Society (PPES), a school that turns unsure young girls from a village into confident young women ready to take on the world. What was also set up alongside was the Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School (PPGVS).

The focus on vocational skills had a simple reasoning. “How good is schooling if it can’t give you a job? I am not a social worker, I am not an educationist. As somebody who has worked in the industry for 40 years, I knew exactly what India needs. We need skilled people and that is what we want to focus on,” says the founder. The focus on this is so sharp that Singh did all he could to get the girls to school. “It’s simple — if you want to take your team to the moon and they want to go to the beach, you should find a way that goes to the moon via the beach,” he smiles.

Thus, when he wanted to start the school 14 years ago, he used a peg that interestingly got 45 girls coming to school. A bicycle, two pairs of school uniforms, shoes, two sweaters and stationery (goodies worth Rs 3,000 back then) were given free to the girls to get them to come to school. A few days later, however, only 20 per cent of the girls returned to the school. Fathers of rest had sold off the freebies and made their daughter sit at home, like they always did. “I told the teachers to concentrate on the 20 per cent and how we could make that percentage into 21, 22 and, finally, 100 per cent.”

Today the school has 1,300 girls (both science and commerce streams) from 43 villages cycling to their dream. In 2006, PPGVS’ first graduating class saw 13 of 14 girls pass their 10th standard UP Board Exams, and 10 of them passed with first division marks.

PREPARING FOR LIFE AHEAD

After class 10, the girls have two options; they can either pursue further studies through class 11 and 12, or they can join the school’s vocational centre and work in the textile industry. No matter what they choose, the school guarantees all PPES graduates a job.

work in Pardada Pardadi’s Production Centre, which creates home furnishings such as table covers, duvets, sheets, curtains, and gift items such as picture frames, trays, dairies, and coasters. These items are sold (through the organisation’s website, exhibitions and designers) in India and foreign markets. The proceeds from the sale of these goods are then reinvested into the Pardada Pardadi programme, thus allowing more girls to receive education and vocational training. Additionally, PPES also formed a partnership with BlackBerry India in October 2010. The company’s production centres currently manufacture 8,000 suit covers per month, with plans to increase production in the upcoming months. They have also worked with Central Cottage Industries, Hayat Communications, and Dun & Bradstreet.

While in school, the girls are also taken for trips and there are exchange programmes in the school. The idea is to give work towards holistic development for the girls. “I firmly believe that when you educate a girl, you educate the entire family. You are making a change that will go down through generations”, says Sam.

PPES, he adds, believes that education will break the cycle of violence and poverty that follows generations. Girls graduate from the school at an age far more appropriate for marriage. Additionally, as a result of the daily stipend programme, they have a greater degree of social and financial independence. As such, these girls are able to control their lives to a far greater degree and are not reliant upon a husband or another male relative to realise their self-worth. Furthermore, the school teaches the girls about family planning, thereby encouraging the girls to have fewer children.

THE LARGER PICTURE

When Sam was trying to get more girls to come to school, he told the families that he would help triple their incomes. And they did just that, thanks to the various programmes they started with community participation. What also sets the school apart is that it’s not just the girls who are studying in the school; their families also see a change in their own lives. The school not only gives job guarantees to the girls but also provides incentives for families to send their daughters to school. One of the most interesting one being that each girl is paid Rs 10 a day for every day she attends school after class five. This money is kept aside for her in a bank and finally given to her when she gets married. Another incentive means all women/ girls in the family of the girl who attends school being taken care of.

That said, every family that sends their daughter to school is involved in the Community Development Division (CDD), which focuses on the overall growth of economically and socially marginalised villagers, particularly women in 196 villages of Anupshahar. Their programmes have widespread social, financial and livelihood benefits and a large-scale, farreaching impact. The programmes are wholly-owned, run by the women SHG (self-help group) members and are intended to be financially self-sustaining in the short-term and independent in the medium- to long-term.

Today, there are 110 SHGs with over 1,400 members from 38 villages and the numbers are growing. The going is not always easy but what keeps the organisation optimistic is the restlessness of the founder that he nursed over his 40 years in the US. Staying abroad, he says, makes you smarter because you work with competitive people and stay around smart people. These smart people, he says, also ask smart questions, a lot of which were pointed at his country that he dearly missed. When you walk the streets of a nation abroad, you tend to miss your country in a strange way. In his case, it was the memory of playing near the River Ganges in his village in Anoopshahr as a young boy, which haunted him.

Talking about his years abroad, he says, “People see you for what your country is. You are as progressive as the happenings in your country (all of which are, of course, not so pleasant. So I guess there was sense of insult building up inside me.” And that he wanted to do something about the insult shows in the drive he leads the organisation with. “I didn’t want to complain about what wasn’t there, I wanted to do my bit”, he says, signing off.