HYDERABAD: It started with a small idea and now we have adopted nine villages and educating 1,250 kids. Our idea is not just to inculcate education. We believe in art and health too,” says the founder of Earth Foundation, Pramodh Peddi.
“I was looking for working partners in India to start any kind of developmental work. I searched for a couple of years and then found a reliable partner in Kalaveni Srinivas (co-founder and Indian team head). He built the whole team in India. Now after five years, we have about 27 employees in India and many unpaid volunteers. In USA, we have seven dedicated volunteers.”
Like many NRIs, Pramodh travelled to the US with big dreams. Soon, he started searching for what could resolve poverty, especially in rural India. “I came to the US in 2000, did my Masters in Computer Science and started working after that. I am a native of Karimnagar district. After I started living here, I always wondered why India is not as developed as the US .
That restlessness grew gradually which lead me to analyse the reasons. I realised education is essential, and is one of the first steps, towards development of any society/country”, says Pramodh who is a software Englineer in New York and resides in New Jersey with his wife and son.
“That’s when I launched Earth foundation”. Earth Foundation believes in providing education, art and health. With an annual curriculum to teach personality developing skills like arts, sports, communication, moral values, social responsibility, etc.
The foundation also believes in several aspects of a child’s growth. “We have programmes such as MAP (Mothers Awareness Programme) where we inspire parents to think towards welfare of their kids (education, good habits, health, etc). Now, almost 80 percent of parents come to MAP event, which are conducted twice per month.
Our SMC (School Management Committee) focusses on Parent-Teacher meeting – a government mandate which is intended to give control to parent community to monitor the quality of their government school”, says Pramodh who struggled initially to convince the parents. “Villagers are hesitant to change, so it requires a constant attempt to inspire them to think towards their kids’ welfare and future. We started with one village in 2012.
We initially did more than just education – like providing nutritious food to kids, etc. We quickly realised that although food is important for poor kids, what was more crucial is a change in people’s mindset. So we stopped spending on food and started to focus our resources (human resources and money) on issues like raising awareness among parents, organising events and connect parent community with school management (teachers), etc.. It worked for us”.
Earth Foundation is a non-profit and runs on donations. “Family and friends have been contributing money. We also conduct events that increase awareness about the organisation and raise some funds. We conducted two fund raisers in Boston and New jersey in the last six months.”
However, it was not a cakewalk for Pramodh initially. “The first four years, we spent `20 lakh from our savings. From the fifth, we started approaching donors and have been able to raise around $40K so far”, says an elated Pramodh who is now looking to adopt more villages and educate more kids.
They now work in nine villages in Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Prakasam districts. It costs `2000 per student/year. Details: www.earthindia.org