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Bhuvana Foundation
Office: C-15 Aashiyana Apt, Venus colony
Chennai 600018 TN, India
Email: premarangachary@yahoo.co.in

2008

To,
Asha for Education
Atlanta Chapter
Attn: Sriram Subramaniam

Dear Mr. Anil Nayak:

As per our discussions by email I am submitting to you the project proposal for Vidya
Vanam – an educational initiative for tribal children – in Annaikatti, Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu. The proposal seeks funding for providing elementary education to children
predominantly from the Irula tribes in and around Annaikatti. The Bhuvana foundation is a
family foundation that was established by the children of Dr. D. Subramaniam, to support
and assist in the education and health of the underserved population of India. Also, all the
children of Dr. D. Subramaniam have had careers in either health or education, hence there
was present in the family inherent strengths to accomplish the goals of the foundation. The
school project that we have started arose from a confluence of a number of events that
occurred over the last two years. Prema Rangachary (secretary of Bhuvana foundation), has
been a leader in developing the Balwadi program with AIM for Seva (an NGO that
provides care to the tribal population) to about 25 villages in the area around Annaikatti.
Because of her close involvement with the villagers, she has understood their needs and has
in process become a person they value and trust. It became very clear to her, that most of
the village families sought an improved educational opportunities for their children and
also wanted English to be taught, a failing in all government run schools. In small gathering
of village personnel, they placed education of children, above almost all other priorities.

The location of the school is also close to the ancestral village of Mrs. D.
Subramaniam. Furthermore, when we brought the idea of starting the school to the board of
AIM for Seva, they were supportive and have provided the land that was currently unused,
as the site for the school. Thus the school was born and our goal is to develop a template by
which elementary education can be provided using a curriculum that will bring literacy to
all children of tribal families. We believe that the curriculum will do away with text books
and provide the essential of language and computation to children.

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The Bhuvana foundation has successfully raised money to build all the physical
structures for the school. The phase II of the school building has begun ( four room

class room that can be expanded to 6 rooms). Hence, we are “good to go” and seek no
funding of permanent structures. I believe that the Bhuvana foundation and the members have
shown tremendous commitment to ensure the success of the venture and are hoping that this
will become a template for other organizations to follow. Our long term goals are to develop
a grade 6-10 school. Plans for this phase are underway and will include a vocational
instruction so that the young adults can look forward to employment.

We are happy to note that at this point we have 40 children being taught in
temporary structures and will move into permanent facilities later this year. The school will
to expand to 90 students for the year 2008, and will reach a maximum of 140 by 2009. An
anticipated increase in the student body necessitates our planning for an increase in the
personnel at the front end. We recognize that non profit funding agencies are stretched by a
number of excellent programs that are competing for funding. I am sending you our budget
that was presented to the board of the Bhuvana foundation ’08-’09 and ’09-’10. Salary costs
for the teachers and school lunches constitute our major expenses.

We are therefore requesting assistance in two areas: a) mid day meals, b) teacher
salary. These are the two major expenses incurred by the school and it is here that we are
seeking funding. Considering a monthly costs of Rs 300 to feed one child, our request for Rs
1,00,000 will cover the expenses of 35 children.

The teacher salary costs amount to Rs. 1,83,000/year. The individual salaries vary
between the five teachers depending upon their experience and educational background.
Thus, Mr. Thapa who is the art teacher in residence is our highest paid, personnel, because of
his skills that he is able to bring to the children and he also is an art instructor for the other
teachers who then are able to include his ideas into the teaching curriculum. We are
requesting a teacher salary support of Rs.1,00,000 which will aid us in getting the rest of the
infrastructure support within the next two years.

One of the questions that were raised in your earlier e-mail was whether the Rs 150/
fees was likely to be burdensome. I can only answer this question by providing the following
vignette of our conversations with the family of the students. Prior to beginning of the school
we had “Sangams” with the villagers and they wanted an English medium school and were
willing to pay Rs 150 per child. Also during the discussions, was the insistence of the parents
that children have uniforms and for the school to designate a school color for the clothes. We
thought school uniforms were a relic of the past and had no relevance today. The parents
insisted on this matter and stated that it was their pride and joy to see their children in
uniform go to school. We argued that it was not necessary to spend this money on uniforms
and that it could be better spent on school materials and supplies. In complete unison, the
parents said that they will pay for the cloth and tailoring themselves if we would only come
up with the color and pattern! I could not believe the degree to which parents of the tribal
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children valued school and learning of their children, their pride in their children going to
school, a privilege that they did not have. We therefore relented and have a policy of
uniforms of Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. In this way the villagers can do with one set
of uniforms for the children.

In regards to admission of children who are not local, many students come from
distance hamlets and villages. Vidya Vanam has arranged a local jeep service that picks and
drops kids near their villages. This is subsidized by Vidya Vanam and small portion is paid
for by the children’s parents. We are negotiating for a van from the Rotary of Coimbatore
and we are hopeful that we will have one later this year.

In item 26 of the proposal seeking the impact of the program, I have given the names
Mr. Sampath Kumar from Gudalur village, and is a facilitator of the Balwadi program for
Aim for Seva and Mr. S. Natarajan who is the local Panchayat Member and lives in
Veerapandipur.

We are hoping that Asha will be a significant partner with the Bhuvana
foundation and Vidya Vana, is ensuring that the education goals of elementary education
are met in the underserved areas of Tamil Nadu.

Sincerely,

S. Sriram

President Bhuvana Foundation

Prema Rangachary

Secretary Bhuvana Foundation

There are no short cuts to education

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