Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Leaving things better than we found them

Any former Girl Scouts out there will be familiar with the motto of leaving something better than how you found it. I've found the motto useful not only for cleaning up, per se, but also when approaching my daily life. Though we still have a full eight months in India, we started asking how could we leave this place better than how we found it?

The opportunities to help people here are endless. As you can imagine, in a developing country with 1.3 billion people, so many are in need of so much. I actually find evaluating charities and social work groups quite overwhelming in the US. Factor in different culture, a much higher level of need, and less transparency -- well, we found it paralyzing.

In the end, we've decided to make a direct contribution to something where we can see the influence directly. After thinking about it for some time, we've decided to sponsor Sarwari's younger two kids for school. In our neighborhood is a good Catholic school that seems to be the choice of most parents of her social class who can afford it - and her older daughter, Nazeema, went there until there were multiple tuitions to pay and it became slightly out of their financial reach.

Armand (her son) has been accepted to nursery class. Naheeda is scheduled to take a placement exam on June 2 to see if she will go to 5th or 6th grade (she finished 5th grade at her other school, but her passing average was a C). I can tell Sarwari is taking this seriously -- Naheeda is being tutored one hour each day during summer vacation so she can pass the 5th grade exam. It's a good sign for the future.

The only remaining obstacle is to set up an accountability regime for after we leave. I'm hoping I can convince the school to send report cards and also accept funds by wire transfer. One step at a time.

3 comments:

Leslie said...

That sounds like such a wonderful idea. Especially since Sarwari has been such an important part of your existence while in India. I can only imagine how much she (and her family) appreciates this. :)

Soids said...

Members of TEA have set up a separate foundation to address similar issues. Called The TEA Cares Foundation (!), they have already done due diligence on several local charities (check your TEA Guide). It's an officially register foundation with the Indian gov't and should be running at full speed in a month or so.

The school, sorry to say, probably cannot accept funds from abroad. That type of transaction is heavily regulated and watched by the Indian gov't. You should check with the TEA Cares people on what is possible.

Elaine said...

Good luck Pam and Greg. I'm sure you will figure out how to get the money part taken care of. and I'm sure that Arhmand and Neheeda will benefit. Too say nothing of Sawari.